WordPress Manual Backup (Softaculous)

Creating manual backups of your WordPress site is one of the most important habits for protecting your work. Softaculous in cPanel lets you back up files, databases, or both — and restore them with a single click if something goes wrong.

About Softaculous backups

Softaculous stores backups in a dedicated softaculous_backups directory on your server. Each backup can include your WordPress directories, your database, or both, plus an optional note for future reference.

Before you begin

• An active Exact Hosting WordPress Hosting service with cPanel access. Softaculous is included in cPanel and is not available on Managed WordPress plans.
• Enough disk space for the backup. Backups are stored on the same server as your site. Check Disk Usage before backing up a large site.

Step 1: Open Softaculous WordPress

1. Log in to cPanel from the Exact Hosting client area, or go directly to yourdomain.tld/cpanel.
2. In the Softaculous Apps Installer panel, click WordPress.

Step 2: Create a manual backup

1. Scroll to the bottom of the Softaculous WordPress page.
2. Under Current Installations, click the Backup icon next to your site.
3. On the Backing Up WordPresspage, choose what to include:
   • Directories
   • Database
   • Both
4. Add a note describing this backup (optional but recommended).
5. Click Backup Installation.

The backup is saved to the default Softaculous backups directory (for example, /home/example/softaculous_backups).

Step 3: View existing backups

1. In the upper right of the Softaculous WordPress page, click the Backups and Restore icon.
2. From the backup list, you can:
   • Download a backup to your local machine.
   • Restore your WordPress install from a backup stored on the server.
   • Delete backups you no longer need.

Step 4: Restore a backup

1. In Backups and Restore, click the Restore icon next to the backup you want to restore.
2. Under Restore Option, choose what to restore:
   • Directories only
   • Database only
   • Both
3. Click Restore Installation.

Next steps

• Test changes on a staging site before applying to live. See Creating a Managed WordPress staging site.
• Download backups regularly. Store at least one copy off-server in case of a server-side issue.

Questions? Contact Exact Hosting Support.