Backups are the safety net you hope to never use and are very glad to have when you do. On CloudPerch every site is backed up daily and kept for 30 days, from the moment it exists — you don't enrol anything or remember to run it. This guide covers how that works, how to take an extra snapshot before something risky, and how to roll back with one click when an update or edit goes sideways.

How backups work here

From the day a site is created, it's enrolled in automatic backups:

  • Daily backups, taken for you in the background.
  • 30-day retention, so you can roll back to any day in the last month, not just yesterday.
  • On-demand snapshots, which you trigger yourself before a change you're nervous about.
  • One-click restore, so rolling back is a single confirmed action, not a support ticket.

A backup captures your site's files and its database together — the whole site as it stood at that point. That's what makes a restore a true point-in-time return rather than a partial one.

Take a snapshot before a risky change

Daily backups have your back, but an on-demand snapshot taken right before a risky change is even better, because it captures the exact moment before anything went wrong — no losing a few hours' work back to last night's backup.

  1. Open the site in your dashboard and go to its Backups area.
  2. Choose Take snapshot (or on-demand snapshot).
  3. Wait for it to finish — you'll see it appear in the list with a timestamp.
  4. Now make your change, knowing the door back is open.

Snapshot before any of these: a major plugin or theme update, a WordPress core update, editing core files, or importing content. The two minutes it takes is the cheapest insurance you'll buy all week.

Restore from a backup

When something's broken and you want to go back, the restore itself is quick.

  1. In the site's Backups area, you'll see the list of available restore points — your daily backups and any snapshots you've taken.
  2. Pick the point you want to return to. The most recent one before the problem is usually the right choice.
  3. Choose Restore and confirm. Restores overwrite the current site, so this is a deliberate, confirmed step.
  4. Wait for it to complete. When it's done, the site is exactly as it was at that point in time.

If you're not certain which point is the good one, start with the most recent snapshot you took before the change. Failing that, work backwards a day at a time.

What a restore does and doesn't change

It helps to know exactly what's coming back so there are no surprises.

A restore does:

  • Return your site's files and database to the chosen point.
  • Undo content changes, plugin and theme changes, and settings made after that point.

A restore does not:

  • Change your plan, billing, or the domain pointing at the site.
  • Touch other sites on your account — each site is isolated and restored on its own.
  • Re-do work you did after the restore point. Anything you genuinely want to keep from after that moment should be noted down or exported first.

That last point is worth dwelling on: a restore is a step backwards in time. If you published a great post an hour after the restore point, restoring will remove it. When in doubt, copy anything recent you care about before you roll back.

Good habits

A few small habits make backups do their best work:

  • Snapshot before updates. Pair this with how you handle plugins — see install plugins and themes the safe way.
  • Restore early. If a site is visibly broken, rolling back to a known-good point is usually faster than debugging live.
  • Don't treat backups as version control. They're for recovery, not for tracking every small edit.

Where to go next

With backups understood, the rest of your maintenance gets a lot less stressful:

Questions about retention or restoring a specific point? Our team is on the contact page, Monday to Friday.