Where to find my WP backup?

Wow, from a quick google search, Trustpilot reviews are all about desperate customers who lost their websites. That’s really bad if no communication was done previously about the company shutting down.

Anyway, do you remember how you setup up the plugin?

Assuming you were using the free version of UpDraftPlus, the email notification only states whether the backup was succeeded or not. It does not mention the destination. So you have to at least have an idea of what the destination was. And then you can start investigating.

For example, I have a website running backups with UpDraftPlus free, tied to a Google Workspace account. This is a separate Google account that I have just for the purpose of using it’s Google Drive storage.

• This reply was modified 11 months ago by NL.

Thanks NL. I “thought” it was backing up to my G drive – but I checked that, and a few other Gmail accounts and Dropbox and it isnt!

You’d think that the fact they are sending me an email each month there might be some way of tracking back to see where it it sending the backups – but maybe that’s only possible with the paid version. Anyway I’ve found a (not totally complete) version of my website on Wayback Machine which is a bit helpful – but it looks like I’ll need a paid service to download it in a usable format (thousands of pages)

My attention now is on telling everyone to archive their emails – which is currently working but presumably could stop working any second!

I think there is a good case to be made for the summary emails to have a reference of where the backups were saved to. I think you should make a separate post to suggest this to the team. Others might chime in and it will get traction.

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Do you still have FTP access to your website? If yes, FTP into the directory wp-content/updraft and look for the log file in there. The log file will mention where the backups are.

Email is still working? That’s incredible. If you’re afraid it might be disabled soon, then users should make sure the contents of their mailboxes are saved offline. If they’re using POP3 then it’s done already (as long as they refreshed recently), but if they’re using IMAP then it has to be done manually (just drag and drop all messages to a new separate PST file, if using Outlook).

There’s also tools for migrating via IMAP, in case it’s a large number of accounts and you already have a new mail server. For example have a look at Imap Sync – https://imapsync.lamiral.info/ . Microsoft and Google also have similar tools for their systems (Exchange Online and Google Workspace respectively).

• This reply was modified 11 months ago by NL.

You’d think that the fact they are sending me an email each month there might be some way of tracking back to see where it it sending the backups – but maybe that’s only possible with the paid version. 

Updraft doesn’t send the summary emails. They’re sent by the WordPress instance (using your webserver).

• This reply was modified 11 months ago by NL.

Unfortunately FTP is not working. That was my first backup plan.

It’s a shame, Falcoda were fantastic for years. Real support from real humans. Now all gone, sadly

“Fortunately” I had Updraft installed which made regular full backups of the site. BUT I don’t know where it was saving the backups – it’s not in my G Drive or Dropbox like I expected!

Anyway I’ve found a (not totally complete) version of my website on Wayback Machine which is a bit helpful – but it looks like I’ll need a paid service to download it in a usable format (thousands of pages)

It seems that you had a large website. It surprises me that you don’t know where the backups were being saved. This is a really critical part of owning a dynamic website (when using WordPress or any CMS), specially large sites that have content being added over time.

If it was a regular portfolio website (like a company site that isn’t updated all the time) you could go back to a much older backup (probably even the archive from when you initially launched the website would work fine).

I know you’ve explored Way Back Machine, try Google and Bing cache as well.

Instructions here:

• https://www.wikihow.com/Find-Old-Websites-That-No-Longer-Exist
• https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/1687222?hl=en

Do you have a copy of one of the emails, I might be able to provide a bit more information from this?

Thanks for your help. No clues on the email. But anyway now I’ve bought a new webspace and will create a new WordPress site from scratch. I can copy paste a lot of my content from Waybackmachine. Maybe even purchase a full download on my site from there (one service even says it re-establishes it as a WordPress site with functioning page links!)

Just in case it helps, for Dropbox. UpdraftPlus stores your files will in “apps/UpdraftPlus.Com” directory. Occasionally users don’t know to look here.

Thanks vupdraft – unfortunately my webhost (falcoda.co.uk) seems to have gone out of business so all files, for all websites are unavailable/vanished.

@radiohead319 I think he meant for you to check in your Dropbox, under apps folder.

• This reply was modified 11 months ago by NL.

@radiohead319 @nlogica – NL is correct I meant to check the apps folder in your Dropbox, not your hosting account

Thanks, but there is no apps folder in the Dropbox. Search for zip files did not find it either!

I’ll push on with recreating the site on a new website. Just waiting for their security team to clear the DNS move!

Just an idea, as I only use the free version of UP. When the backups are being created daily on my webserver hosting site, I do not setup the backup files to be copied or transferred to some other site. Instead I use my daily backup program (GoodSync) that backs up all of my local PC files to a NAS drive, I use GoodSync to “retrieve” my backups from the webserver, and then these get copied to my local NAS drive.

You can find the UP backups in this folder on your hosting file manager here:

ftp://ftp.YourWebSite.com/public_html/wp-content/updraft

I am simply using my GoodSync program to FTP into my hosting website and copying the files where I need them to be saved locally.