Numerous WordPress users have experienced the nightmare of losing data, dealing with hacked websites, and the stress of lacking a dependable backup when it was most crucial.
We understand that the idea of losing your hard work is frightening, and the technical terms surrounding backups can be daunting.
After over a decade of running CanadaCreate, we have discovered reliable methods to back up your website without spending any money. One effective option is utilizing Google Drive.
In this tutorial, we will guide you through a simple and free method to protect your website. You can take advantage of the 15GB of complimentary cloud storage available with your Google account.
Reasons to Back Up Your WordPress Site to Google Drive?
Backing up your WordPress site on Google Drive is essential because it ensures you have a secure copy of your website. If issues arise, such as a hacker compromising your site or accidental deletions, you can quickly restore a backup to resolve the problem.
Consider it like having a spare key for your website. If the primary key fails, you can use the spare to restore everything to normal.
Many users also create backups before implementing significant changes to their site, such as modifying their WordPress homepage or installing a new theme. This precaution allows them to revert to the previous state if something goes wrong.
Storing your backup on Google Drive is a smart choice because it protects your data from potential threats like hacking. Even if your main website or computer is compromised, your backup remains secure in the cloud, and it won’t consume any space on your WordPress hosting plan.
By creating a Google account, you receive 15GB of free storage for backups and other files. If you require additional space, you can upgrade to 100GB for just $1.99 per month.
Now, let’s explore how to back up your website to Google Drive. You can use the quick links below to easily navigate through the tutorial:
- How to Automatically Back Up Your WordPress Site to Google Drive
- How to Manually Back Up Your WordPress Site to Google Drive
- How to Restore Your WordPress Backup from Google Drive
How to Back Up Your WordPress Site to Google DriveAutomatically
WordPress does not include a built-in backup feature. However, there are many excellent WordPress backup plugins available that simplify the process of backing up and restoring your site.
UpdraftPlus is one of the top backup plugins for WordPress. This free plugin allows you to schedule backups, enabling you to automatically back up your WordPress site to Google Drive.
Alternative:If you’re seeking a premium solution with advanced capabilities, we highly recommend Duplicator Pro.
In addition to backing up to Google Drive, you’ll also receive recovery points that allow you to quickly revert to a previous version of your site, along with a straightforward site importer via a URL.
Step 1: Install UpdraftPlus and Connect It to Google Drive
Begin by installing and activating the UpdraftPlus plugin. For detailed instructions, refer to our comprehensive guide on installing a WordPress plugin.
After activating UpdraftPlus, you can set up your backup preferences and select Google Drive as your storage option.
To proceed, navigate to UpdraftPlus Backups in your WordPress dashboard, then click on the ‘Settings’ tab.
UpdraftPlus allows you to easily save your backups to various online storage services, including Dropbox, Amazon S3, Microsoft OneDrive, and more.
Since your goal is to back up your WordPress site to Google Drive, click on ‘Google Drive’ in the ‘Choose your remote storage’ section.
Once you select Google Drive as your storage option, you will need to grant UpdraftPlus permission to access your Google account.
To begin, click the ‘Sign in with Google’ button.
Next, follow the on-screen prompts to authorize UpdraftPlus to access your Google account.
After reviewing the disclaimer, click on ‘Complete setup’ to authorize UpdraftPlus to access your Google Drive.
Once you complete that step, UpdraftPlus will redirect you back to its main settings page in the WordPress dashboard.
Step 2: Set Up an Automatic Backup Schedule for Your WordPress Site
With Google Drive selected as your storage option, you can now set up an automatic backup schedule.
Still in the ‘Settings’ tab, scroll down and click the Save Changes button. UpdraftPlus will now automatically back up your site according to your specified schedule.
UpdraftPlus divides WordPress backups into two categories: files and database.
Let’s begin with files. This backup will include copies of your site’s code files, plugin and theme files, as well as images.
To begin, open the ‘Files backup schedule’ dropdown and select how often you want UpdraftPlus to back up your WordPress site.
You can choose intervals ranging from once a month to every 2 hours.
When setting your schedule, consider how frequently you update or add new content to your site. For instance, if you publish two blog posts each week, you might prefer to back up your WordPress blog weekly instead of daily.
If you frequently update your website, it’s essential to back it up more often.
For online stores, it’s crucial to back up your site regularly to prevent the loss of vital information like new orders and customer payment details.
After deciding how often to back up, you should determine how many backups UpdraftPlus will retain to optimize your storage space.
You can specify this number in the text box next to ‘…retain this many scheduled backups.’
These settings can be adjusted at any time, so if you’re uncertain, start with a higher number and reduce it later if the backups consume too much space.
When UpdraftPlus reaches the specified limit, it will automatically replace the oldest backup with the latest WordPress backup.
Next, set up a backup schedule for your WordPress database in the ‘Database backup schedule’ section.
Since WordPress stores all posts, pages, comments, links, and site settings in the database, it’s equally important to back up the database regularly, just like your files.
You can specify how often UpdraftPlus creates backups of your database and the number of backups to retain by following the previously outlined steps.
Step 3: Select What to Back Up on Google Drive
By default, UpdraftPlus includes all your WordPress plugins, themes, and uploads in the backups stored on Google Drive.
In the ‘Settings’ tab, navigate to the ‘Include in files backup’ section. Here, you can decide whether to include WordPress themes, plugins, or uploads in your backup.
To create a full copy of your WordPress website, ensure that the default three checkboxes remain selected.
If you do not wish to include plugins, themes, or uploads in your backups, you can simply uncheck the corresponding box. This action can help reduce the size of your backups and save space on your Google Drive.
If you keep the ‘Uploads’ box checked, you can establish rules regarding the types of uploads that UpdraftPlus will exclude from its backups.
There are existing exclusion rules in place. For instance, the plugin automatically excludes any files containing the word ‘backup’ in their filenames. To add more exclusion rules for the content UpdraftPlus will omit, simply click on ‘Add an exclusion rule.’
Follow the on-screen instructions to set up your exclusion rule.
For instance, if you want UpdraftPlus to skip all PDF files, click on ‘All files with this extension’ and enter ‘PDF’ in the provided field.
By default, UpdraftPlus excludes certain files from the wp-content folder.
You can view all of UpdraftPlus’s default exclusion rules in the ‘Any other directories found inside wp-content’ section.
Need UpdraftPlus to exclude additional content from the wp-content folder? Just click ‘Add an exclusion rule’ in this section and follow the same steps outlined above.
If you’re uncertain about what to exclude, we suggest keeping the default settings, as they work well for most websites.
Remember to click the ‘Save’ button at the top to apply your changes.
How can you tell if an UpdraftPlus backup to Google Drive was successful?
Each time UpdraftPlus successfully completes a backup, it can send an email notification to your site’s admin email address, confirming the backup’s completion. If a backup fails, you will not receive an email.
In the ‘Settings’ tab, scroll down to the ‘Email’ section. You can enable these notifications by checking the box in this section.
You will receive an email notification each time UpdraftPlus completes a backup.
After completing the setup, click ‘Save Changes.’ UpdraftPlus will now automatically back up your site to Google Drive.
If you do not receive emails from UpdraftPlus, check to ensure the plugin is successfully creating backups in your Google Drive.
If you are using the free version of UpdraftPlus, you should see a new ‘UpdraftPlus’ folder in your Google Drive. Open this folder to verify if it contains any WordPress backups.
The following image illustrates how several backups may appear in your Google Drive account.
If UpdraftPlus is successfully creating backups but you are not receiving email notifications, there may be an issue with your email settings on your WordPress site.
To resolve this, consider installing the WP Mail SMTP plugin, which has helped over 3 million websites with email delivery issues. Check out our guide on fixing WordPress email delivery problems to ensure emails are sent correctly.
Steps to Back Up Your WordPress Site to Google DriveManual Backup
Automated backups are an excellent way to safeguard your website. However, even with a scheduled automatic backup, there may be times when you need to perform a manual backup.
It’s wise to create a manual backup before making significant changes, such as updating your WordPress version. Additionally, consider creating a manual backup after adding a substantial amount of new content.
To manually back up your WordPress site to Google Drive, navigate to UpdraftPlus Backups. Then, simply select the ‘Backup/Restore’ tab.
To proceed with creating a manual backup, click the ‘Backup Now’ button. UpdraftPlus will present some basic settings for you to configure your manual Google Drive backup.
Similar to an automated backup, UpdraftPlus is set to back up all your files along with the WordPress database by default. It will also utilize the same remote storage location that you have set for your automated backups, which in our case is Google Drive.
The default settings are typically sufficient for most websites, so when you’re ready, click the ‘Backup Now’ button.
How to Restore Your WordPress Backup From Google Drive
Creating backups with UpdraftPlus is straightforward, but the real advantage lies in the ease of restoring those backups from Google Drive.
If your WordPress site has been compromised or you wish to start anew, the first step is to remove everything and reinstall WordPress.
After that, you will need to reinstall and activate the UpdraftPlus plugin on your new WordPress site. For assistance, please refer to our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.
Once activated, navigate to Settings » UpdraftPlus Backups and select the ‘Settings’ tab.
In the ‘Choose your remote storage’ section, select Google Drive.
You can now follow the on-screen instructions to grant UpdraftPlus access to the Google account where your website’s backups are stored in Drive.
After linking UpdraftPlus to your Google account, click on the ‘Backup/Restore’ tab.
UpdraftPlus will scan your Google Drive and display all the backups it finds. Once the scan is complete, locate the backup you wish to restore and click on ‘Restore.’
Next, select the components you want to restore. If you are restoring to a new WordPress installation, it is advisable to check all the boxes.
After selecting your components, click the ‘Next’ button.
UpdraftPlus will retrieve all necessary files to restore your WordPress backup from Google Drive.
After successfully importing all required files, simply click the ‘Restore’ button. UpdraftPlus will proceed to restore your backup from Google Drive.
This process may take a few minutes, depending on the size of your backup and your Internet connection speed.
Once completed, you will see a ‘Restore Successful’ message in the Activity log. You can then click the ‘Return to UpdraftPlus configuration’ button to go back to the settings and finalize the process.
Congratulations! You have successfully restored your WordPress website from Google Drive.
We hope this article has helped you learn how to back up your WordPress site to Google Drive. Be sure to check out our guide on creating a WordPress disaster recovery plan and learn about common WordPress errors and their solutions.
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