Backup Your Content and Custom App Logic in a WordPress Instance
Not all the data in a WordPress instance needs to be backed up since it is part of the core install and can be re-downloaded at any time.
The two types of data that you should be concerned with backing up are the actual content of the site as well as the custom logic that you add to WordPress. All the custom logic lives in the wp-content folder, the only part of the file system that needs backing up.
Instructor: [0:00] When backing up a WordPress instance, there are two main components that we need to back up. First of all is the content. We get that by going to, tools and export. We export all of the content. We can see we get posts, pages, comments, custom fields, times, navigations, messages, and custom post. Export that, and that comes as an XML file.
[0:17] The second thing we need to backup is all of our theme files. If we go to theme and theme editor, we got a warning, "Hey, don't change any of this backend." Can we understand? All these files are the files that tell WordPress theme, what functions to run, what hooks to run, and all those things are required to be able to get up and running.
[0:36] They are all stored in the wp-content folder. May, this is found in local sites, as at Egghead. You see I've got an app folder called folder and a logs folder. It's an app public. The folder I need to back out and put into source control is wp-content.
[0:50] All the rest of these directories and files are included in the standard WordPress install. We only upgrade WordPress. Anything in wp-admin, make it overwritten. Anything in wp-includes, make it overwritten, but wp-content is ours, ready for us to backup and to manage ourselves.