If you meant you download your WP files and folders... that is the backup, as far as the WP engine and your files are concerened.

As a general note, there are only 2 places in your whole WP blog that contain specific data that cannot easily be replaced:
- your database (it contains all your posts, Pages, comments and settings)
- your wp-content/uploads folder (images, media etc. used in posts)

Everything else can be downloaded again from the wp.org site.

There are plugins that do a regular backup of your database, they were posted several times even in this forum. Or see the wordpress.or/extend > plugins section.

I personally just backup everything in my wp-content folder since I usually make a lot of theme modifications. I do it manually as well.

If your web host provides cPanel then you can use its backup function and just generate a full website backup with a click of a button.

Unless you control the database then it's not likely to be included in the "file backup" you are doing.

Also, unless you are customizing the blog files online and not keeping a local copy of the "theme" you've created, then the only thing you need to do periodically is BACKUP YOUR CONTENT.

That's as simple as clicking a couple of buttons within the dashboard and EXPORTING the data.

Wordpress will create an XML file of all your TEXTUAL content for easy storage. Image files and other attachments won't be backed up with this approach. Typically I have a mirror blog on another location and then export from one into another and I say "YES" to the prompt that says would you like to also export/import the images etc. This does slow things down a bit, but you have an entire backup of the blog.

Lots of ways of getting what you want quickly, all depends on the level of implementation and customization.

Hope this helps.

This is what I use:
Site Backup CP - easy backup for cPanel® websites

I backup all my sites to my D: drive. Then Mozy backsup my computer to their servers.

Edit: Did I mention is backs up your MySQL and files in one go.

That Site Backup app looks like an interesting program - cheap price too! I might give that one a whirl.

For me, I do a phpMyAdmin export for the database, and I use the cPanel file manager and go in and create an archive of everything in the public_html folder. This makes the process very fast, as the only file download is then the zip that is created, rather than having to wait ages for all the files to come in one by one.

I opt to grab the whole folder as it takes barely any extra time to archive the whole lot, and then if I need to restore the site all I have to do is upload the zip, use cPanel file manager again to extract it on the server, and import the db file. It's been a very quick and effective process for me, and I use the same steps to move sites as well.

I also take some comfort in the daily backups performed by my host, so if an emergency struck, I can get them to roll back to their latest version.

Personally, I backup my public_html folder, and whatever databases I'm running...

Back up JUST THE FILES in your root folder (/domain.com/ if its an addon domain) and then the WP-CONTENT (& media) folders *. Then backup your database USING REPLACE method. This is for a serious crash/hack. I also EXPORT my content (pages,posts,comments) [xml file] for incidental loss.

In other words, if I need to restore, I try the xml file FIRST. If that didn't fix it, well then I'd upload/replace all FTP files (in my backup) and import my database, which will replace all of my content that got corrupted/damaged/lost/hacked.

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