[Plugin: Duplicator] Restoring to same host

Hey Andre,

You won’t be able to restore the same site with the same database and directory location without first removing all your current files. There isn’t any option in the plugin to do this type of restore.

Technically you would have to do the following:

1. Make a full backup of all your site files and Database. Files can be backed up via FTP to another location or some cpanels let you create a zip of a directory which you can FTP/move to another location. The database can be exported via phpMyAdmin (in your cPanel). This first step is just a pre-caution should you not be able to get the Duplicators installer to work correctly on your site. You don’t have to take this step however I would strongly encourage it.

2. Login to your wp-admin and create a package from the Duplicator dashboard page. Then download the package and installer file to another safe location.

3. Remove all files in the current sites root directory.

4. Copy the package and installer back up to the empty directory root you originally had all your files in. This directory will obviously be empty as you just removed all the files.

5. In the web browser, browse out to the installer.php file and fill in all the parameters and re-install the site.

If this is the first time you have ever done this kind of work, then I would strongly encourage you to try it on your own computer by setting up a system like XAMP, WAMP, or for Mac MAMP.

Hope that helps!

Hi,

Thanks for the quick reply!

It looks very daunting. This is a multi-site as well, so I’m sure how I don’t want to delete anything right now. Do you think I could start by uploading and overwriting the wp-admin and wp-includes folders? Could that cover a good bunch of it?

Andre

Hey Andre,

The plugin currently doesn’t support MU, or at least hasn’t been tested very well with MU. I believe I have that on the FAQ page, but I’ll move the notice to the main WordPress page FAQ to be more apparent.

The plugin is currently designed for a fresh clean install, technically what you want to do might work, I haven’t try it. Just be sure to have separate backups in-case something goes wrong…

OK, but if I use Duplicator to create a backup of my whole site, can I then restore it later to the same site, same host. let’s say I mess up a site I’m working on and have to revert back to a previous version.

1- Can I use Duplicator to do that?

2- Where could I find step by step instructions to do so?

Thanks again! I was able to unzip the back-up I had downloaded on my computer and re-upload some of the files that had been messed up, so now the site is back up!

Regards,

Andre

Hey Andre,

1 – Yes
2 – Up above start at step 3 with the installer and package file, however it doesn’t support MU as I mentioned earlier…

It will only be restored though from the point at which you created the package. So if you created it on Jan 1 of 2012 and restore it today then you will loose any info from Jan 2 till today that you added to your site because none of that data was packaged…