Creating and Restoring Back-ups in WPEngine

Creating temporary and permanent back-ups and Restoring back-ups of previous versions of websites hosted on WPEngine.


Prerequisites: WPEngine, Website hosted

Difficulty Level: Member • Nerd • Platypus

Estimated Time: 30 minutes

Expected Outcome: Website is restored or back-up is created

Tools Required: WPEngine, Unzipping tool


Steps to Perform

    1. Login into the WPEngine User Portal at: https://identity.wpengine.com/
      WPEnine Login Screen
    2. From here go to the website you are looking to backup or restore, in this example, we are going to backup the NNI Dev website.
      WPEngine (My Sites)
    3. Now click the "⋮" on the right side...a menu will pop-up. WPEngine Backup
    4. If you click the "Backup environment" option, you will be taken to a "Backup Description" popup. 
    5. Click "Create production backup". A new screen will load to indicate you will receive an email when the backup is complete. 
      WPEngine Email when Backup Completed
    6. To create a permanent backup, select the environment you want to backup "nnidev", select "Backup points", "Select the point you want to download and choose “Prepare ZIP”. This takes the currently selected backup and creates a ZIP file containing that backup. This file is sent through a link to the email addresses listed. NOTE: Make sure you download the backup ZIP file within 7 days because after that the link will disappear after this time. 
      WPEngine Select the Environment

    7. You can choose to create a Full or Partial Backup of the site.
    8. To restore a point click the checkbox next to the preferred restore point and then click “Restore”
      WPEngine Restore Backup
      NOTE: You can restore a version from Dev to the Production site, so be careful to pick what website you want to use the restore on.

      WPEnine Restore Location
    9. To restore from a ZIP file, follow the readme.html found inside the ZIP folder. 
    10. Once completed the website will be restored to the previous version.