In part 1 of our backups guide, we covered several ways to back up your RapidWeaver project file for safekeeping. In part 2, we will review how to back up your already published website.
A couple things to note:
- There is a distinction between backing up your project file and backing up your published website. Your project file is used for building/working on your website within RapidWeaver. On the other hand, your published website consists of the files that are uploaded from RapidWeaver to your web hosting account, enabling people to view your site online. As such backing up your project file and backing up your published website are two different tasks.
- Only a backed up project file can be automatically restored inside RapidWeaver. You cannot automatically restore a backup of your published website files inside of RapidWeaver. That’s why it’s important to follow part 1 of our guide to ensure you have a backed up copy of your project file at all times, as this is the most important piece of the backup puzzle.
You might be asking yourself, “If I can’t automatically restore a backup of my already published website inside RapidWeaver, why would I bother making a backup of this data in the first place?” There are several good reasons to back up this data:
- In the event you have lost both your project file and project file backups, and you no longer have access to your published website files at your web hosting provider.
- If you are wanting to change web hosting providers. Your new web hosting provider might ask you for a backup of your website files so they can restore it on their server.
- For “just in case” purposes. There could be many reasons you need a backup of your published website files at some point or another, so it’s a good idea to always make sure you have a current backup of this data handy.
With the above information out of the way, lets dive into some of the different ways you can back up your already published website.
Check if your web hosting provider offers automatic backups as a feature
The easiest method to back up your published website is to let your web host handle this for you.
Most web hosts offer automatic account backups. Backup frequency can vary between web hosting providers. Some web hosts perform account backups multiple times a day, while others may only do so once a day. There are also hosts that opt to only make backups once a week.
Another important aspect to consider is the method through which the web host delivers these account backups to you. Certain web hosts enable direct access to your backups through a control panel, while others may not provide access to the account backups and instead offer them to you upon request through manual means.
Some important questions to ask your web host:
- Do they offer automatic account backups?
- How often are backups made?
- How many backups are kept on file?
- How long do they keep these backups on file for?
- How can you access your backups?
- What are their backup guarantees?
- Do they have any backup redundancy in the event one backup method fails or they suffer a critical data loss event?
If your web hosting provider cannot answer these questions satisfactorily, we recommend finding one that can.
While we recommend hosting your website with a provider that offers automatic account backups, we don’t recommend relying solely on these backups. After all anything could happen, and it’s best you keep a backup of your website on a system that you control, which leads us to our next method.
Download a copy of your website files to your Mac
The safest method to back up your published website is to download a copy of your website files yourself. There are two primary ways to do this:
Via your web hosting provider’s control panel
Most web hosting providers offer a control panel you can log into in order to manage your account. Below we’ll go over how to make a backup of your website files for download via the cPanel control panel.
Step 1
Log in to your cPanel account and navigate to your File Manager.
Step 2
Navigate to the web directory for your website (usually public_html however check with your web host if you are unsure), select all of your website’s files/folders from the file list, then click the “Compress” option in the upper menubar.
Step 3
In the pop-up window select your compression type (we recommend either Zip Archive or GZiped Tar Archive), then scroll down to enter a name for your compressed file, then click the Compress Files button.
In the below example the default name given to the backup file is “blog.tar.gz”. I will rename that “blog”part to “my-website-backup” which you will notice in the next step.
Step 4
You should now see your backup file in the file list. Select it, and click Download in the upper menubar.
Step 5
Your backup file will be downloaded to your default “Downloads” folder on your Mac (or your custom download folder if you’ve selected one from your browser’s settings).
You now have a backup of your published website on your Mac. You can move this backup file to an external hard drive, external SSD, or cloud storage service as needed.
Alternate method
A somewhat simpler method to back up your published website files via cPanel is to download a copy of your entire home directory. This not only includes your website files, but everything contained in your home directory. Some of the backed up data you likely wouldn’t need, however this method involves less steps and might be easier for some.
In order to download a backup of your entire home directory:
Step 1
In your cPanel navigate to “Backup”.
Step 2
Under the Partial Backups section, click on the “Home Directory” button located under the heading Download a Home Directory Backup.
And that’s it. A backup of your entire home directory will be downloaded to your Mac. When this backup is extracted, you will notice it contains your entire home directory folder structure. Your website files will be located in their respective web directory (in the below example our site is located in the public_html folder).
You can move this backup file to an external hard drive, external SSD, or cloud storage service as needed.
The next primary way to download a backup of your published website is:
Via your preferred FTP client
If you prefer accessing your published website files through FTP, you can follow these steps to download a backup of them. In the following instructions, we will be using the FTP client Cyberduck, but you can use any FTP client of your choice.
Step 1
Connect to your web hosting account via your preferred FTP client and navigate to the web directory for your website. In the below example our website is stored in the public_html folder.
Step 2
Select your website files from the file list, then select “Download To…” to select a specific download location on your Mac or external drive (we recommend downloading to a custom folder created specifically to hold your website backup).
In Cyberduck, you can right-click on the highlighted files and then select from the Download options. Your FTP client may differ, however it should have a Download option built-in. Consult your FTP Client’s user manual for more information on how to download files to your Mac or external drive.
Step 3
Once the download has completed, navigate to the download location on your Mac or external drive to confirm your website files are there. In the below example, we downloaded our website to a custom folder called “My Website Backup” which is located in our default Downloads folder on our Mac.
You’ve now successfully downloaded a copy of your website files via FTP for safekeeping.
You can repeat the steps from any of the above listed methods as often as needed to ensure you always have the most up-to-date version of your website backed up on your Mac or external drive.
Ensuring that you have up-to-date backups of both your RapidWeaver project file and your published website files is crucial for safeguarding your website against unforeseen data loss; and building a website requires significant time, effort, and hard work. Backups are the #1 measure you can take to guarantee the preservation of your investment.
We hope you’ve found Backups - The definitive guide to backing up your RapidWeaver built website useful. Do you know of other ways to back up your RapidWeaver project file or published website files? Feel free mention those, or leave any other questions or comments in the comments section below.
As always happy weaving!