Overview
You can manually back up your website's three main data types for a specific domain — files (via an FTP client), the database (via phpMyAdmin or SSH), and email. This article explains how to back up each, and links to DreamHost's backup policies:
How do I back up my website data?
The following sections explain how to manually back up your website files, database, and emails associated with a specific domain.
How do I back up website files?
You can back up your website files using an FTP client
Once connected to your server, you can then download the website files to your home computer. See this article to understand how to use an FTP client after logging in to the web server.
If you have several GB of data, DreamHost recommends compressing the directories first on the web server. This is not required but will make it easier to download the content since there is less data to process.
To proceed, you will need to create a shell user and log into your server via SSH.
How do I back up a database?
There are different methods you can use to back up your databases. For example:
| Method | Difficulty | Details |
|---|---|---|
| phpMyAdmin | Easy | This method uses phpMyAdmin to download the database |
| SSH | Advanced | This method uses SSH commands to download the database |
See this article for further information.
How do I back up email?
See this article for the different options available to back up your DreamHost emails.