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1. Take a backup now

Go to Snapshotify > Backups and select Create Backup.
1

Give it a title

Something you will recognize later. “Before plugin update” beats “Backup 3”.
2

Leave Full-Site Backup on

It excludes nothing, which is what you want for a first backup and for anything you might restore from.
3

Choose a location

Local, or a connected cloud provider on Pro.
4

Start Backup

Progress is shown as it runs. You can close the tab; the job continues.
Take a backup before anything risky: a plugin update, a theme change, a migration, or your own experiment. That is the moment a backup earns its existence, and it is the moment people skip it.

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2. Verify it

An unverified backup is a hope, not a backup.
1

Check the row

It should show a size, a date, its contents, and its location. A size of zero or a missing contents badge means something went wrong.
2

Read the activity log

Select the log for that backup. It records each stage, and any warning that did not stop the job.
3

Download it

Confirm the archive downloads and opens as a ZIP. Inside you should see database.sql, manifest.json, and your files.
The only complete verification is a restore. If a working backup genuinely matters to you, restore one onto a staging site once and confirm the result. Everyone intends to do this and almost nobody does, which is why people discover a broken backup at the worst possible moment.

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3. Get it off the server

A backup stored on the same server as the site does not survive the failure that destroys the server. It protects you from your own mistakes, not from your host.

Download it

Free. Manual, but it works, and the archive is a plain ZIP.

Connect cloud storage

Pro. Google Drive, OneDrive, or Dropbox, automatically.

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4. Put it on a schedule

Manual backups depend on you remembering at the right moment. Scheduling is Pro, and it is most of the reason to have Pro. Go to Settings > General.
1

Turn on Scheduled Backups

Choose daily, weekly, or monthly.
2

Match the frequency to how often you would mind losing work

A store taking daily orders should back up daily. A brochure site that changes twice a year does not need daily backups.
3

Set exclusions if you need them

Leave Full-Site on unless size is a real problem. Excluding the media library is the usual first choice, since media rarely changes and is often most of the size.

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5. Set retention

Also on Settings > General. Auto-Remove Backups keeps the most recent few and deletes the rest, defaulting to three.
Retention deletes permanently. Set the count to a number of periods you would want to go back through: three daily backups is three days of history, which is not long if you do not notice a problem immediately.

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6. Turn on notifications

Settings > Notifications. Off by default. A scheduled backup that quietly fails every week is worse than no schedule, because you believe you are covered. Enable notifications and, at minimum, keep backup failed on.
Send them to an address a person reads. A backup failure notice in an unmonitored inbox is the same as no notice.

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A reasonable setup

For most sites: Plus a manual backup before anything you would not want to undo by hand.