Does export delete my current database

That will not export your database; it exports a WXR (XML) format file of your content. You could use this to build a new site. If you want the real database, use the EXPORT function in PHPMYADMIN, available from your hosting control panel. Neither method changes or deletes your database.

She gets a message that says ehost is no longer in business. She has been unable to retrieve her database. I don’t want the same thing to happen to me.

Just a quick heads-up: While the database is certainly the most important part of your site, it is nonetheless not a complete backup of the site. It doesn’t include any of your uploaded images and other files (or even your active theme and plugins, though these can easily be replaced).

My recommendation is to install a WordPress backup plugin and configure it to automatically generate and send a complete backup of your site to a dedicated Google Drive account (15GB free) or some other external cloud storage service periodically (eg daily, weekly, monthly, etc — depending on how frequently you update your site).

This way you can easily restore a complete backup of the site would it ever become necessary — complete with all your content, theme, plugins and full site design — without having to rebuild the site (which you may have to do if all you have is the database or worse, the WXR export file.)

Good luck!

Ask your hosing provider – if any- for backup your full site, sourcecodes and database. The database is most important and you can accesst PHPMyadmin and export it like @sterndata’ comment.

In the sourcecodes, the most important folder is “uploads” inside the folder wp-comtent. This folder store your images, and maybe some custom data from other pluigns.