How to Create and Restore Backups in Softaculous

Softaculous, a tool included with cPanel, is well known for how easily it lets us install apps on our hosting plan. However, not everyone knows about its other benefits—for example, its ability to create backups of our site. A backup involves backing up both a website’s files and its database, and Softaculous does an excellent job with both.

In this tutorial, we will cover how to create (and download) a backup, as well as how to restore our website if necessary.

Creating our first backup

First, we need to access our site’s cPanel:

cpanel.yoursite.com

After entering our credentials, we look for the Softaculous icon in the Software section.

Note: cPanel is included with all our hosting plans.

Next, we will click the following button:

Then, we will find and click the icon that looks like a small green ZIP file:

On the next screen, we can make a few choices, but essentially we need to ensure that the following options are selected. Optionally, we can write a note describing the reason, date, or reference for the backup, and change the default backup directory.

When we press the blue button, we will see a progress bar that dynamically indicates the time remaining for the operation.

When it is finished, we will see the message: the backup has been created successfully. You can download it from the Backup page.

By clicking the provided link, we will be taken to a page where we can download the file for the backup we created. The screen we see will be similar to the following screenshot.

Alternatively, we can find the backups using an FTP client (e.g., filezilla) or the cPanel file manager. Note that, by default, saved backups will be located in the root of our account, inside a folder called softaculous_backups.

At any time, by accessing cPanel and selecting the Softaculous icon in the Software section, as noted earlier, we will see the link to our downloads. In the screenshot below, we can see the relevant button, highlighted with an orange box.

Restoring our backup

We need to repeat steps we have already gone through: access our cPanel again and click the Softaculous icon in the Software section, as described at the beginning of this guide. Then, we will click the "Backups" button, indicated by an arrow in the screenshot below.

On this page, we will see a list of all the backups we have created over time. Next to the backup we need to restore, we simply click the Restore icon. The screenshot below shows this clearly:

Note also that we can delete backups we no longer need, which is important for preserving free space on our hosting plan.

Returning to the backup restoration process, after clicking the Restore button, we will see the following confirmation screen. Simply click the "Restore installation" button to replace our site with the backup.

As with the backup creation process, we will see a progress bar, followed by the message "Your backup has been restored successfully." After this, we can access our site and refresh the page to check the changes (alternatively, press CTRL+F5 to force our browser to load a fresh version).

That’s all! We hope you found this guide very easy to follow and, as always, wish you success and thank you for reading.