Backup and restore from Enhance

What you'll achieve

• restore the whole site, a folder, a file, a database or your email yourself, from a backup made in the last 7 days;
• make a backup before a major change and download your site to your computer;
• know when it is simpler to contact us.

Before you start

• Decide what you want to recover (a file, a folder, a database, email) and from which day, meaning the last backup before the problem.
• Restoring overwrites what you have now. If you are not sure, download the current version first: files from the “Files” tab (right-click » “Download”), a database from the “Databases” tab (see section C).
• While the restore is running, you cannot make other changes to the site from Enhance.

The steps

A. Restore from the daily backups

1. In the left menu, click “Websites”, then the site’s domain. On the website’s page, open the “Backups” tab.
2. You will see the list of backups, each with its date and time and its type: “Automatic” (made by us) or “Manual” (made by you).
3. For the backup from the day you want, open “Restore” and choose what to restore:
   • “Full website”: all files and all databases, as they were at the time of the backup. Email is not touched;
   • “All mailboxes”: all email addresses and forwarders. Warning: messages received after the time of the backup are deleted;
   • “Custom”: you choose exactly what, on the “Custom restore” page:
     • under “Files”, check the folders or files, for example public_html/wp-config.php or public_html/imagini;
     • under “Databases - MySQL”, check the databases;
     • under “Emails”, check the addresses. Here, the messages in the backup are added to the current ones, without deleting them.
4. For “Custom”, click “Restore now”. For all three options, Enhance shows you the date of the backup and what will be replaced; confirm with “Restore”.
5. When it finishes, a message tells you the restore is complete. Any changes you made to the restored items after the time of the backup are lost.

Good to know: if you restore only some databases, their users are not restored. To get the users back as well, restore all databases (“Full website” or all databases checked under “Custom”).

B. Make a backup before a major change

Before a WordPress update, a new theme or a new plugin, make a backup on the spot:

1. On the website’s page, in the “Backups” tab, click “Create backup” (if the panel is set to “English (US)”, the button is called “Backup now”).
2. Under “Backup note”, write why you are making it, for example “before the WordPress update”.
3. Click “Backup now”. While it runs, you see “Backup in progress...”, and when it is done the backup appears in the list with the type “Manual”.

If something goes wrong, restore it as in section A.

C. Download a backup to your computer

1. On the website’s page, in the “Overview” tab, in the “Quick links” card, open “Download” and choose:
   • “Download website data”: all files and databases, in a .tar.gz archive. Scheduled tasks (cron jobs) are not included;
   • “Download email data”: all email addresses, with their messages and passwords.
2. The download starts right away. The archive does not stay in your account, so it does not use any space.

To download a single database, go to the “Databases” tab: click the database name, then “Export SQL file”. You get the database as an SQL file.

Keep the files on your computer or in your own cloud storage.

D. Put back a backup from your computer

• The whole site, from an archive downloaded in section C. On the website’s page, in the “Overview” tab, in the “Quick links” card, click “Upload backup”, then “Choose file” and select the archive. The upload starts as soon as you choose the file and replaces everything currently on the site: files, databases and email. It cannot be undone. Only archives made by Enhance work.
• A database, from an SQL file. In the “Databases” tab, click the database name, then “Import SQL file” and choose the file. The contents of the file are loaded into the selected database.

E. When it is simpler to call us (free)

Contact us if:

• you cannot find the backup you need in the “Backups” tab: we also have the copy on separate storage;
• you have a full backup made at another host, for example in cPanel, or a very large .sql file;
• the site was hacked and a “clean” day needs to be found;
• you do not know exactly what needs to be restored or from which day;
• you want the backup put in a separate, new folder, so you can compare it with what you have now.

To help us finish quickly, tell us:

1. the domain;
2. exactly what you want: the path of the file or folder, the database name, the email address;
3. the approximate day and time before the problem;
4. whether we should overwrite what is there now or put the backup separately, in a new folder, so you can compare.

Free restores are made from a backup from the last 7 days, so contact us as soon as you notice a problem.

If something doesn't work

1. The list in “Backups” is empty. The site is probably new: the first automatic backup is made shortly after it is created. A file created and deleted between two backups does not end up in any backup.
2. You do not see the “Backups” tab or the “Create backup” (“Backup now”) button. Contact us.
3. “Upload backup” rejects the file. Only archives downloaded from Enhance with “Download website data” work. For a backup from another host or for a very large file, send us the file or tell us where to find it, and we will restore it.
4. After restoring a database, the site shows “Error establishing a database connection”. You restored only some databases, and their user was not restored. In the “Databases” tab, check that the user exists and has access to the database. Its password must be the same as in the site’s settings (for WordPress, in wp-config.php). The steps are in Creating a MySQL database and user.
5. New messages are missing after “All mailboxes”. This restore brings the mailboxes back to the time of the backup, so messages received after that are deleted. Contact us right away: we can look for them in later backups.