Backing up and restoring TablePress table data

Hi,

thanks for your question!

You are correct, TablePress uses “Custom Post Types” to store the tables in the wp_posts table. The benefit of that is that tables will then also be revisioned (i.e. old versions are kept, up to a limit, unless this is deactivated), just like regular posts and pages (there’s just no easy way to restore an old revision though, yet).

The best way to save tables for backup purposes is to export all tables to the JSON format on the “Export” screen of TablePress. This will then contain all data and settings of all tables in individual files, stored in a ZIP archive, which TablePress can then import again.
If you want the data to be readable by other programs, the CSV format might be better choice. You can then also open the tables in e.g. Excel. However, this format has the drawback that it does not export the settings of the checkboxes of the tables.

Another option for the backup is to create a full database backup of the mySQL database that WordPress uses. This will then included all data for your WordPress installation. There are several plugins that can automate this.

A third choice would be to use the “WordPress Export” functionality (TablePress supports that since version 1.5). That will give you an XML file with the chosen content of your WordPress installation.

Additionally, you can backup your “Custom CSS”, if you want, by copy/pasting it to a file on your computer, or by saving the “tablepress-custom.css” file that is located in /wp-content/ folder on the server.

Regards,
Tobias

Thanks Tobias, I’m now taking exports in JSON format and CSV of the particular table whose content is most likely to need revisions. I guess my remaining question is: is there any way you’re likely to add the option for us to set up such things automatically? I realise that automatic saving off the wordpress server isn’t a trivial issue but I think it’s helpful to be able to back up TablePress content (and format) separately from the main backups of the site as I’m likely to find myself making changes to the page that contains a TablePress table and also making changes to the TablePress table content and the two may be quite out of synch. I hope I won’t but I can imagine wanting to roll back the table content but wanting NOT to lose recent changes I made to the containing page, hence the wish to have the separate backups of the TablePress material. Am I making sense?! Thanks again, Chris

Oops, meant to say more clearly: I guess I’m just registering a wishlist item longing for such an automated backup system. I’d be happy to pay extra for it as I did to improve on the free backups for the whole site. Very best, Chris

Hi Chris,

I do have an approach that would export a table to a file on the server whenever it is updated/edited. It’s now available as a TablePress Extension at tablepress.org/downloads/extensions/tablepress-auto-export-tables.zip
If you install and activate that, the latest state of each table will automatically be stored to the /wp-content/tables/ folder, in the CSV format. You would of course have to backup those files regularly.
Does that help?

Regards,
Tobias

Perfect. Sorry I hadn’t seen that plugin. I’ll see if I can fix a cron job to backup /wp-content/tables/* offsite daily too and then I’m 100% happy. Thanks again Tobias,

Chris

Hi,

no problem, you are very welcome! ?? Good to hear that this helped!

And no worries about not seeing that plugin ?? You couldn’t have, because it’s not mentioned anywhere yet ??

Best wishes,
Tobias