Backing up and Restoring your Website with Softaculous

If you have used Softaculous to install a program, you can also use Softaculous to make a backup of your website. Creating a complete backup of your application and its databases is an important task, and Softaculous makes it easy.

In this tutorial, we'll cover the following topics:

1. Creating a backup
2. Downloading a backup
3. Restoring a backup

To create a backup of your website using Softaculous:

1. Log into your cPanel
2. Click the Softaculous link under the Software/Services section
3. At the top right hand corner of the page, click the Application Installs link
4. Within the list of websites, click the backup icon to the far right of the website you want to backup
5. Under Backup Installation, check either or both boxes to the right of Backup Directory and Backup Database.
6. Click the Backup Installation button at the bottom of the page.
   
   You will see a progress bar appear on the screen showing you how much time is left in the backup process. When the backup is completed, you'll see the following message:
   
   The backup was created successfully. You can download it from the Backups page.
   
   If you click that Backups link, you'll be taken to a page where you can download a copy of the backup created. You can also find the backups using either FTP or the cPanel file manager. They will be located within the root of your account in a folder named softaculous_backups.  If you require information on using FTP, go to Getting Started with FTP

To download the backup just created by Softaculous

1. Log into your cPanel
2. Click the Softaculous link under the Software/Services section
3. In the top right of the page, click the Backup and Restore link
4. On this page you will see a list of backups you've previously created. Click the File Name next to the backup that you would like to download. Your browser will then begin to download the backup file.
   
   Take note that the File Name of each backup includes the date and time the backup was generated. For example, if you have a backup named wp.26_97098.2012-08-22_17-32-20.tar.gz, the backup was generated August 22nd, 2012 at 5:32pm.

To restore your website using a Softaculous backup

1. Log into your cPanel
2. Click the Softaculous link under the Software/Services section
3. In the top right of the page, click the Backup and Restore link
4. On this page you will see a list of backups you may have previously created. Next to the backup you would like restored, click the Restore icon to the far right.
5. On the next page, select whether you would like to restore either or both your website files and your website database.
6. Click the Restore Installation button
   
   A progress meter will appear to show how much time is left with the restoration process. When it has finished, the following message will appear:
   
   Your backup has been restored successfully
   
   At this time, if you visit your website and refresh the page, you should see your website restored to an earlier version!