How To Set Up UpdraftPlus WordPress Plugin | Easy 2022 Guide

Want to learn how to set up UpdraftPlus? Having a reliable backup option for your website is a must.

The last thing you want to experience is the loss of your website’s data.

That’s why in this article, I will teach you how to set up the UpdraftPlus WordPress plugin.

One of the worst things you can do is ignore advice about backing up your website.

It’s not a question of if your site will go down, but when.

And when it does, the odds of losing some or all of your website’s data is almost 100%.

What Is The Updraft Plugin?

UpdraftPlus is a backup and restoration plugin created for the WordPress website content creation platform.

Its main use is to automatically and consistently make backup copies of your entire website’s contents

And then save them to a remote storage service like Google Drive or Dropbox.

If anything catastrophic happens to your website and its data, you can restore your website to how it was before the damage happened.

You simply designate a remote storage service and decide how often you want to backup your website.

That’s all, you only need to worry about restoring the saved backup files if something happens to your website.

UpdraftPlus Review

I have been using UpdraftPlus for 2 years now on 4 of my websites. And all I can say is that it’s saved me a couple of times.

I accidentally deleted one of my websites through my backend cPanel account.

I have no idea what happened but because I used UpdraftPlus, I was able to restore my website and was back up and running in less than 5 minutes.

Then, I got malware and a virus and it was decided the best thing to do was delete all of my websites’ data to wipe it clean.

Finally, I went back and restored my website with files that were saved before my site was infected.

Best WordPress Backup Plugin?

UpdraftPlus saved me precious time, money, and stress. I highly recommend this plugin to anyone that is starting or currently has a WordPress.

If I had to give this plugin a rating, I would rate it 5 out of 5 stars.

There is simply no reason not to have a backup solution for your website, and I have not used a better backup plugin than UpdraftPlus.

You can download UpdraftPlus directly from the WordPress plugin repository by clicking here.

Is UpdraftPlus free?

UpdraftPlus comes in 2 versions.

The free version and a premium version. The free version, which is the one I use, gives you several options which are more than enough to get you started.

These include…

UpdraftPlus Premium

UpdraftPlus Premium offers all of the features found in the free version plus, the following extended features…

UpdraftPlus Free vs Premium Plugins

Here is a comparison chart directly from UpdraftPlus’ WordPress theme page.

This shows a side-by-side comparison of all the features you’ll have access to for each plugin version.

How Do I Install The UpdraftPlus WordPress Plugin?

From your WordPress dashboard, go to the left-hand menu and hover over the Plugins tab.

A sub-menu box will appear offering up new menu options.

Click the Add New button.

In the search box, type in UpdraftPlus.

The UpdraftPlus plugin will show up in the first position on the plugins page.

Click the Install Now button.

After you install, click the blue Activate button.

You will then be taken to your Installed Plugins page. Notice the message at the top that says Plugin Activated.

Congratulations, you have successfully installed and activated your UpdraftPlus plugin.

Now, onto the next step.

Set Up Your Remote Storage Service

This crucial step will allow you to save your backup files in a secure and remote place away from where your website is hosted.

For this tutorial, I will be using Google Drive. This service will give you 15 Gigabytes of storage for your website for free.

This will be more than enough especially if you’re just starting.

Simply go to the Google Drive website by clicking this link. After you have clicked the link, you can move on to the next step below.

When you reach the Google Drive homepage, you are going to create a Personal Account by clicking the blue Go To Google Drive button.

If you do not already have a Google account, you will be prompted to create one.

Simply create an email address and password as well as fill out some personal details to proceed.

After you have created your free personal Google Drive account, you will be taken to your account dashboard.

Here you will find some getting started files. After you read them you can delete them to get rid of the clutter.

Click the NEW+ button.

Next, click the New Folder button.

Type in UpdraftPlus into the folder name text field.

Then click on the Create button.

The newly created UpdraftPlus Folder can be found in 2 locations.

The first place is in your My Drive folder.

And the second place is within your Folders section.

We are now done with Google drive.

Next, go back to your WordPress website dashboard.

In your WordPress dashboard, on the left-hand menu, hover over the Settings tab and then click the UpdraftPlus Backups button.

You are now in the UpdraftPlus dashboard.

At the top of the page, click the Settings tab.

You now have to link your Google Drive account with the UpdraftPlus plugin.

Click the link to authenticate.

Choose the Google account you want to be associated with UpdraftPlus.

Next, click the Allow button.

This will give UpdraftPlus permission to link to your Google Drive account to save your website backups.

Finally, click the Complete Setup button to continue.

If you go back to your UpdraftPlus settings tab, you should find the message “You appear to be already authenticated”.

If you see this message, great, you’re all set.

However, if you don’t see this message, you’ll need to re-authorize by clicking the link below the first link.

How To Use UpdraftPlus

Using UpdraftPlus after you have changed your settings is a breeze.

From here on out, you’ll only ever really need to visit the Backup / Restore tab.

First of all, from the UpdraftPlus dashboard, click the Backup / Restore tab.

How Do I Restore Using UpdraftPlus?

1. Click the Backup Now button to manually backup your website. This is great for testing purposes or if you want to make additional backups that are not scheduled.
2. This is your message log and will display the date and time of your last backup as well as any errors that may occur.
3. The last section displays all of your recent backups that have not been deleted yet. This is also where you will be able to restore your website data should anything go wrong.

UpdraftPlus Migrator / Clone Feature

1. First, go to the Migrate/Clone tab on the UpdraftPlus plugin dashboard.
2. Choose the clone feature if you need to make changes and test to see how it will affect your site.
3. If you need to make a copy and send your website data to another location, then choose the Migrate option.

The UpdraftPlus Migrator feature allows you to copy your whole website and then send it to a new hosting company.

Or if you sell your website you can give all of your website data to the newer owner.

This feature must be purchased using credits called tokens and is not included in the free version.

You probably won’t need this feature if you’re just getting started.

The Clone feature allows you to make an exact copy of your website and then host it on UpdraftPlus’ servers.

This feature allows you to make site-wide changes without harming your live website.

Once you know everything is working correctly, you can send or “push” the changes over to your original live website.

These are great features that you won’t miss until you need them.

And when you do, UpdraftPlus makes the whole process extremely simple.

How To Set Up UpdraftPlus WordPress Plugin Conclusion

If you only install one plugin on your WordPress website, please make sure that it’s a backup and restore plugin.

Take it from me, you do not want to wait until something terrible happens to your website before you take action.

And with UpdraftPlus, your worries will be a thing of the past.

If you are struggling to start a website and would like to learn how then you can visit my blog starter guide here.

I truly believe this will help jumpstart your blog, especially if you are stuck on a particular step.

Well, there you have it. I appreciate you taking the time out of your busy day to read my article about the UpdraftPlus WordPress plugin.

Thanks again and as always, please take care and have a great day.