Before I buy the paid version, how can I test the backup to see if it worked?

Hi Amanda,

Thanks for the question – I’ll reply to this off-forum. The WordPress forum people don’t like questions in these forums which are about premium versions, and I expect someone will soon delete this topic.

David

Thanks David – will you send me an email?

Hi Amanda,

I did about 60 seconds ago – check your GMail spam folder if you’ve not received it!

David

David, you’re welcome to answer the question here if you want, though if they paid for support, I imagine you have you own way of handling that ??

OK, thank you! Here was the answer I emailed:

* * *

Thanks for asking!

> How can I test that the backup I created using the free version worked and is usable?

There are a few different answers to this question, depending on your level of WP know-how….

The simplest way is to:
1) copy your site manually to your computer (i.e. copy the whole WordPress directory)
2) open up the database backup file (the one that ends in db.gz) on your computer (you may need to install 7-Zip from https://www.7-zip.org/ to do this), and verify that this is the final line:
/*!40101 SET COLLATION_CONNECTION=@OLD_COLLATION_CONNECTION */;

After doing that, you’ll know that you have a backup of everything, so that even if restoring via UpdraftPlus were to somehow wreck everything, then you’ve still got a backup. You can then press the “Restore” button in UpdraftPlus’s settings page, and see what happens.

If you have the “Migrator” add-on, then you can set up a clone of your WordPress site at a different location. But that’s a catch-22 if you want to know if it works before buying it!

Alternatively, feel free to set up a shared folder in Dropbox or Google Drive with a copy of your backups from UpdraftPlus in, or send me your FTP or Amazon details (whichever method you’re using to backup), and I can test out your backups for you.

> Also, if we break something really serious on the site to the point that we can’t get back into WordPress, is there still a way to restore using UpdraftPlus?

Yes – you just create a brand-new WordPress install, install UpdraftPlus into it, and then you can drag-and-drop in your existing backup set and restore using that.

There’s lots of info on the different ways of restoring, depending on your skill-level and confidence, here:
https://updraftplus.com/faqs/category/restoration/

We also have support packages in the shop for people who want us to do a restoration for them if you have no confidence ! ??