During the past few weeks, TechBii had lots of downtime as it had suspended for high traffic and resource issue. At last I forced to migrate my server. The hectic job took almost a week and it was the most annoying days for me. Though I had daily backups of my database (Thanks to Better WP Security Plugin), I lost my data files such as Themes, Plugins, Images etc.

Believe me! Hosting account suspension is definitely a nightmare and sometimes you could forfeit access to your account in no time. So, I was continuously contacting my hosting dept. to allow me some time to take my file backups. Thank God. I got in and Hostgator really understand the pain of bloggers.

So in the given time, my only aim was to backup my whole blog and migrate to another server. I had done many site transfers in the past but most of them were using the conventional method ; downloading and uploading the files through FTP. But my internet connection was acting weird and if I followed the same method, I could have taken days to complete my site transfer.

I contacted one of my friends, who is also my theme developer for assistance and he suggested me a magical plugin, yes that’s Backup Buddy. It’s a premium plugin and I grabbed one copy from here. Installation was completed in seconds as every plugin does and followed further procedures. Bingo ! My whole blog got transferred within minutes and I must say, if I knew about this awesome backup plugin before, then I wouldn’t have let my blog down for days. :/

In this tutorial, I guide you to backup and transfer your whole WordPress blog in the easiest manner using Backup Buddy plugin. As I mentioned above, it’s a premium plugin and does cost few bucks. But it’s a must have plugin for every bloggers as it has lots more features than backup/restore option. You can schedule automatic backups of files and database through this plugin as well.

Awesome Features of Backup Buddy

  • View server configuration settings and recommendations.
  • View site size and database size (with and without exclusions).
  • View file transfer status and statistics.
  • Verify file permissions.
  • Graphical interactive directory size map.
  • View database tables, status, and sizes.
  • Email notifications
  • Backup number and size limits
  • Directory and database table exclusions
  • View and copy backups stored on remote destinations
  • RepairBuddy BETA script for repairing a broken site

If you are planning to transfer your WordPress blog to another host and don’t have enough time to do so, follow me. This tutorial is made for newbies and I share what I learned in the previous site transfer. First of all download this plugin [Link] and install either via FTP or directly from plugin dashboard. If it’s done already, jump in to the procedures.

How to Take Full Site Backup using Backup Buddy

  • After installation, head on to the plugin options from WP dashboard and under Backup Buddy settings, choose “Backup/Restore”. Under the hood, choose “Complete Backup” option as shown below. You can take Database backup individually from the rest option. But as you are transferring the full blog including files and DB, choose second option.

 

  • You can receive the backup file in many ways such as local download, send to a destination, send to dropbox etc. But here, I chose local download as I can save the site backup in my computer. You may choose depending on your convenience but the rest process will be same. After clicking “Complete Backup” option, the backup will start as shown in below screenshot. It’s done in 3 steps ; settings backup, DB backup and Files backup. Hence, you won’t loose anything from your current blog. It will ask for a “Backup password“. Type desired password and do remember it. It will be prompted while importing the backup.

  • It will take some time (not more than few minutes) to complete the backup depending your server response. After that the backup file will be available to download (as I chose local download) . Download it and keep it in a safe place. We’ve to download one more small file called”importbuddy.php“. This file is very important to move further as it does give instructions to restore our site. Download importbuddy file from the plugin options panel. It will look like this.

  • Assuming that you have now downloaded importbuddy file as well. Now copy the file and place it to the somewhere else on your computer, preferably, near backup file.
  • We have all done with our current host. Say good bye to them and get ready to export our blog to another host. Remember, keep the files (Backup file and importbuddy.php file) handy.
  • This step is very important. Do this as fast as possible just after completing the steps at your current host. Change your name servers ASAP to preferred host. Meanwhile, we should upload the backup files to your new host.
  • It’s time to log in to your new host’s cPanel and create a new Database (Databases -> MySQL Databases). Do remember the new DB name, DB user name and DB password as it’s needed in the further steps. While creating a new user, don’t forget to give full permission to the user.
  • Now log in to your new host’s FTP client (Uploading through cPanel>File Manager is also fine) and upload both files (backup ZIP and importbuddy.php ) to your public_HTML folder.
  • We have to access the uploaded importbuddy.php file from our browser. For that, type “http://www.yourdomain.com/importbuddy.php” and check if it loads the file for further procedures. If it doesn’t show anything and turned in a “nothing found page”, don’t worry. Your name servers aren’t propagated though. Just wait for some more minutes again do the same. After successful DNS propagation, you could access to the importbuddy file easily.
  • If all went fine, it will prompt you to enter the “Backup Password” which we have done in the first step. Do enter it and in the next screen you could see something like this.

 

  • It will automatically detect the backup zip file if uploaded correctly. Just follow the procedure by clicking “Next Step”. In the second step, it will ask you to either continue with new server restoration or to restore to an existing server. As we have created a new database, choose the first option.

  • Follow further and give details of your database accordingly in the next steps. Continue the flow and it will lastly delete the backup file and importbuddy file for safety measures. At last step, you can see something like this. It means, you have done all perfectly and successfully transferred your whole blog to the new host.

It was the end of the tutorial. See how easily you have migrated your blog to a new server without any hassle. Say thanks to the Backup Buddy plugin developers for their awesome job.

Over to You

Backup Buddy is a life saver for me and I never thought that blog migration has become this much easy using this plugin. Now I want to know you feedback and suggestions. I have taken much effort to provide this article being in my exam periods and your each shares are much appreciated to support me. Let me know your comments. 😀