Back Up WordPress to Google Drive

The Backup tab of a WordPress site saves copies of it to your own Google Drive. You choose when, and you keep the files. This article explains how to connect Drive, run a backup, set a schedule, and what to do when something needs attention. To bring a backup back, see Restore a WordPress Backup.

Connect Google Drive

1. Open your WordPress site and go to Backup.
2. In the Google Drive card, press Connect Google Drive.
3. Sign in to the Google account that should hold the backups and allow access.
4. You come back to the Backup tab and the card shows the account and Connected.

Only the workspace owner can connect or disconnect Drive, because it is the owner's Google account. Team members with the Developer role or above can then run backups, and Admins can restore and delete them.

What FlyNode can see in your Drive

FlyNode asks Google for one narrow permission. It can see, create, change and delete only the files it creates itself. It cannot see anything else in your Drive. Backups are saved in a folder called FlyNode Backups, with one folder for each site and one folder for each backup, named by its date and time (UTC).

Back up now

Press Back up now. The row shows each step (checking space, backing up the database, backing up the files, uploading, checking). A small site takes about a minute. When it shows Saved, the files are in your Drive and each one was checked against the size and checksum Google reports.

What a backup contains

• The database: posts, pages, comments, users and settings.
• wp-content: your themes, plugins and uploads (cache folders are left out).
• A small manifest listing the WordPress version and your plugins and themes.

It does not contain WordPress core (it can be downloaded again at the same version) or wp-config.php, which holds your database password.

Automatic backups

In the Automatic backups card, switch the toggle on and choose:

• How often. Every week on every Cloud Workspace. Every day on Medium and larger Cloud Workspaces.
• The day (for weekly), the time and your time zone. A backup set for 03:00 stays at 03:00 on your clock when daylight saving changes.
• How many to keep, from 1 to 30 (7 by default). When a new backup is saved, older ones beyond that number are deleted from your Drive.

Press Save. The card shows when the next backup is due. If the site is busy with an update, a push or a scan at that moment, the backup tries again every 15 minutes for up to two hours.

When something needs attention

• A scheduled backup fails. You get a notification and an email (at most one a day for each kind of problem), and the Backups list shows the reason.
• Three scheduled backups in a row fail, or Google Drive needs reconnecting. Automatic backups are switched off and the card says why. Fix the cause, then switch them on again.
• Your Drive is full. Free some space or connect another account. The card shows Drive is full.
• Google access was removed. If you remove FlyNode in your Google Account settings, the card shows Reconnect needed. Press Reconnect.

Delete a backup or disconnect

The bin icon on a row deletes that backup from your Drive. Disconnect stops new backups and withdraws FlyNode's access at Google. Backups already in your Drive stay there until you delete them.

Good to know

• Backups are made on the server and uploaded straight to Google, so nothing is stored on FlyNode afterwards.
• FlyNode also makes a quick copy on the server before every update and every push to the live site, and keeps the newest three of each so a bad change can be undone. See Updates, Backups and Automatic Rollback. Those are not the same as the backups in your Drive.
• A backup is a copy of the live site. A staging copy has no Backup tab. If you delete a site, its backups stay in your Google Drive until you delete them there.
• Sites larger than 20 GB are not backed up yet. Contact support if you have one.