I learned a hard lesson about backups the other day, and the bad part of the lesson was this: I did it to myself!
I have this little website named Why We Love Cats. There wasn’t much to it, but I had stories about my cats, my husband’s cat, and friends’ cats. And, I had pictures of the cats.
I did back up the site using the WordPress Database Backup plugin but I didn’t read the fine print.
Let me tell you the story.
I had been getting a lot of spam through the website, so being the conscientious webmaster that I am, I went into the User settings with the intent to delete the admin login. WordPress suggests that we do this to prevent hacking. So, I did.
But I wasn’t paying attention to what I was doing. When I clicked “Delete admin user”, a window popped up and asked what I wanted to do with the posts the admin had written. This is where I should have read the fine print. I just clicked “Delete” instead of attributing them to the new user I created.
My entire website was GONE.
I contacted my webhost, HostGator, and because I had the backup file in my email, they were able to restore my site. EXCEPT, the backup didn’t include my pictures. To make matters even worse, I had no backup of the pictures on my laptop, external drive, or online backup (Mozy). Somewhere on an interstate in Montana last summer, I had, in a moment of boredom, cleaned out the “My Pictures” folder on my laptop. They were gone…
If you visit Why We Love Cats, you will be able to read the stories, but I’ve never taken the time to add the pictures back.
What I learned was: use more than one backup plugin.
I still use WordPress Database Backup plugin and have the backups emailed to me. This is the file Hostgator used to restore the site. (There’s an affiliate link for HostGator on the Specialties page. If you’re interested in a webhost, it would be appreciated.)
I also use the WordPress Backup plugin. This plugin backs up my current theme, images, and plugin directories. I would hate to lose my plugin directory. The backup is emailed to me also. The plugin developer does make the note that if your file is large, it cannot be emailed. I haven’t gotten there yet.
So, all in all, the lesson wasn’t that painful. But I do miss the cat pictures.
