Being a web designer, I forget that most people are clueless when it comes to the inner-workings of WordPress, web hosts and FTP servers. Gosh, I just scream nerd after that sentence. Nevertheless, I may be a bit of a computer nerd and I’ve been wanting to share some of these quick tips with you guys for a while, it’s just taken me some time to get my act together. As if screenshots were a difficult task (COMMAND + SHIFT + 3 for those of you who don’t know how).
One thing I constantly find when I log in to client’s Worpdress backend is that they’re working on an old version. And no worries, that’s not a terrible thing, but keeping up to date is also important. It will keep your site in standards with what designers are designing for and typically things just work better if you’re staying up to date.
But updating is maybe a little freaky. Why? Because there’s a good warning about making sure you’ve backed up your database and all your files before attempting. Yeah, terrifying. None of us want to lose years worth of posts, content, or that gorgeous design we’ve got.
So when you update, please don’t cross your fingers and hope for the best. At least attempt a little bit of precaution and save your files. I’m not perfect, but I’m not taking my chances either. This is how I update my version of WordPress and I can’t guarantee that it’s fail-safe — I don’t do a database backup — but it’s quick and I’ve never had any issues with it. That being said, I also feel that I need to say, this is NOT how WordPress recommends you back up your site so I cannot be held responsible for any lost content. I’m sure some designers and developers will disagree with my method, but this is merely a sharing of my ideas and how I do things here at Leap & Design That Inspires.
Also, if you haven’t updated in a really really long time and have a really really old version, then I completely recommend backing up everything. Just to be safe.
So without further ado, the lovely WordPress updating tutorial…
STEP 1
Find out if you need to update or not! WordPress proudly displays this message at the top of your dashboard if you’re in need of an update.
STEP 2
Login to your FTP server, I use Cyberduck, and download your all your theme files — child theme and parent themes please. Any if you really want to be safe, you can download all your plugin files, but I don’t use anything too wild that I can’t easily re-install so I typically skip this step.
STEP 3
Download an XML file of your content. I definitely think this is the MOST important step. If worse came to worst and you lost your design, at least you’d still have your content. There’s no making up for that, am I right? But then again, we’ve already got all those theme files downloaded, so we’re good!
STEP 4
Hit the update button and wait for the new WordPress dashboard to appear. Feel free to update your plugins at this time too. Again, I’m never as worried about backing these up because all I usually need to add is a username and password and that’s easy.
Honestly, I can’t tell you what happens if shit hits the fan. It’s never happened to me (knocking on wood now). I end up tossing all those back-up files in the trash. A few things I’d make sure of before starting is that I have a good, reliable & fast internet connection so there’s less room for mistakes. And if you’re really concerned, contact your web host, they’ll gladly walk you through the steps of backing up your database to do the full WordPress recommended back up.
So there you have it. A cheater’s guide to backing up WordPress! Questions, feel free to ask, I can’t guarantee I’ll know the answer, but I’ll try my best!
