How to Backup your Joomla Web Site

if you are like me, you have probably spent a lot of time adding content to your Joomla! site. I would recommend that from time to time you make a backup to your site incase anything goes wrong.

First backup the Joomla files to your Personal Computer using an FTP client or a program like Dreamweaver.

Login to your server,

Navigate to your Joomla application folder

Download it to your local computer

Next you will need to Export/Backup your Joomla Database

Login to your CPanel that you will normally be supplied with by your ISP (Internet Service Provider). If you don't have this application you will need to talk to your ISP and discuss how you can backup your database.

Select phpMyAdmin if you do have CPanel

The phpMyAdmin tool display.

Select the database that you would like to backup from the drop-down menu called Database (located in the upper left corner of the page I only have one so I just select the hyperlink)

A new page will be loaded in phpMyAdmin showing the selected database.

Click the Export tab

Leave the default options selected and check that you have Save as file (which will save the file locally to your computer in an .sql format) and Add DROP TABLE (which will add the drop table functionality if the table already exists in the database backup) selected

Click the Go button to start the export/backup procedure for your database:

A download window will pop up prompting for the exact place where you would like to save the file on your local computer. It is possible that the download starts automatically. This depends on your browser's settings.

Importing or Restoring your Joomla MySQL database from a Backup

To restore (import) a database via phpMyAdmin, first choose the database you'll be importing data into. This can be done from the drop-down menu on the left.

Click the Import tab

You have the option of importing an .sql file.

Click the Browse button and navigate to the Joomla SQL file that you saved as your backup on your Local Computer.

Note: you are given the option to choose the character set of the file from the drop down-menu just below the upload box. If you are not certain about the character set your database is using just leave this option set to the default one.

Click the Go button at the bottom-right to start the Restore.

A notification will be displayed upon a successful database import.

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