Every site is backed up automatically, every day. You do not have to set anything up, and you can take extra backups yourself whenever you want.
Where to find them
Open the site in your site manager and select Backups.
The top of the page is the summary: how many backups you are holding, how many you are allowed, and how much space they take up. Underneath it is the schedule, which you can change — see Choosing when your backups run.
How many are kept
There are two separate allowances, ten automatic and ten manual. They do not compete with each other, so taking manual backups never pushes out your automatic ones.
When an allowance is full, the oldest is replaced by the newest. That is worth understanding: a backup is not kept forever. If a particular one matters — the last known-good copy before a big change — download it, and then it is yours regardless.
What is inside one
A backup can hold two things, and normally holds both:
- the directory — your files: themes, plugins, uploads, images;
- the database — your content: pages, posts, settings, orders, users.
You need both to rebuild a working site. Files without a database gives you a site with no content; a database without files gives you content with nothing to display it. The WordPress version is recorded too, so a restore puts back a site that actually runs.
They use your disk space
Backups count towards the storage on your plan, alongside your files and databases. If My Hosting → Summary shows you running short, old backups are usually the quickest thing to clear.
What a backup does not protect you from
A backup restores your site to how it was. It is the right answer to a bad update, a broken plugin or a mistake. It is not a substitute for noticing a problem — if a site has been wrong for weeks, the backups may all be wrong too. That is the real argument for taking a manual backup at the moment you know things are good.
