WPvivid Guide: WordPress Backups, Schedules, Restore and Migration

This article is a localized edition of the Japanese original. Read the Japanese original

WPvivid Backup & Migration (plugin slug wpvivid-backuprestore) is a free plugin that backs up a WordPress site and can also restore it or migrate it to another server. As of November 2026, its WordPress.org plugin page shows more than 900,000 active installations. The screen names and feature scope in this article were checked against the WordPress.org plugin page and the official WPvivid documentation (docs.wpvivid.com) as of November 2026. Button names may differ depending on the display language and version.

What the free version can and cannot do

For how it compares with other backup plugins, see "WordPress backup plugin comparison".

Installation

On the add-plugin screen under "Plugins" in the admin, search for "WPvivid", install it and activate it. On servers with WP-CLI, you can also install it with these commands.

wp plugin install wpvivid-backuprestore --activate
wp plugin list --name=wpvivid-backuprestore

Once activated, a "WPvivid Backup Plugin" menu (shown as "WPvivid Backup" or similar in some environments) is added to the admin menu.

Take a manual backup

1. Open "WPvivid Backup Plugin → Backup & Restore" and select the "Backup & Restore" tab.
2. Choose what to back up. Usually choose "Database + Files (WordPress Files)" (the whole site). The other options are "WordPress Files (Exclude Database)" (files only) and "Only Database" (database only).
3. Choose where to save it. "Save Backups to Local" stores it on the server, and "Send Backup to Remote Storage" sends it to the cloud or other storage you have set up.
4. For backups you want to exclude from automatic deletion (one taken right before a big change, for example), check "This backup can only be deleted manually".
5. Click "Backup Now". Progress is displayed, and the backup continues even if you leave the page.

When it finishes, it appears in the "Backups" list on the same screen, where you can download, restore or delete it.

Set up cloud or other remote storage

If your backups exist only on the server, you lose them together with the site when the server fails or is compromised. Set up at least one destination outside the server.

1. Open the "Remote Storage" tab under "WPvivid Backup Plugin → Backup & Restore".
2. Choose the service to use (Google Drive, Dropbox, Microsoft OneDrive, Amazon S3, DigitalOcean Spaces, FTP, SFTP) and connect it by following the on-screen instructions. For Google Drive and similar services, you grant access on that service's own screen.
3. Once connected, you can choose "Send Backup to Remote Storage" as the destination for manual and scheduled backups.

The free version sends to one destination at a time. Sending to several clouds at once is a Pro feature. If you use Amazon S3, create an access key that can write only to the backup bucket, and do not use an administrator key.

Schedule automatic backups

In the "Schedule" tab, enable the schedule, choose the following items and save.

• Interval: every 12 hours, daily, weekly, every 2 weeks, monthly
• Contents: whole site, files only, database only
• Destination: on the server, or cloud or other remote storage

For a frequently updated site, splitting the work (for example, the database daily and the whole site weekly) keeps recent copies while saving space.

WPvivid schedules run on WordPress's scheduled task system (WP-Cron). As the official documentation notes, tasks run when the site receives a visit, so on low-traffic sites they can run late. If you need them to run at fixed times, call WP-Cron from the server's cron. The steps are covered in "Running WordPress WP-Cron from server cron".

Restore from a backup

Restoring overwrites the current site data with the contents of the backup. Posts and comments written after the backup are lost, so to be safe, take a backup of the current state before restoring as well.

1. Open "WPvivid Backup Plugin → Backup & Restore" and click "Restore" for the backup you want in the "Backups" list.
2. If the backup exists only in remote storage, first pull it to the server with "Retrieve the backup to localhost".
3. Click "Restore" and confirm on the confirmation screen.
4. Progress and logs are displayed. Do not close or reload the browser until it finishes.

If it stalls or times out, the official documentation advises reviewing the advanced settings (Advanced Settings) under "Settings".

Migrate to another server or domain

Before migrating, do a fresh WordPress install on the destination server and install WPvivid there. Temporarily deactivating caching, firewall (security) and redirect plugins during the migration makes failures less likely.

Method 1: Auto-Migration

This method sends the backup directly from server to server.

1. On the destination site, open the "Key" tab under "WPvivid Backup Plugin → Backup & Restore", choose an expiration time, click "Generate", and copy the key that appears.
2. On the source site, open the "Auto-Migration" tab, paste the key and click "Save".
3. Choose what to move (usually "Database + Files (WordPress Files)") and click "Clone then Transfer".
4. When the transfer finishes, on the destination site click "Scan uploaded backup or received backup" in "Backup & Restore", then run "Restore" on the received backup.

Some hosting providers restrict server-to-server connections, which makes auto-migration fail. In that case, use Method 2.

Method 2: Move the backup files by hand

1. Take a whole-site backup on the source site and download it from the "Backups" list. If it is split into several files, download all of them.
2. On the destination site, choose "Upload" in "Backup & Restore" and upload the files. Upload multiple files together in one go. If they are too large to upload from the browser, put them in /wp-content/wpvividbackups/ via FTP or SFTP and use "Scan uploaded backup or received backup" to make them appear in the list.
3. Run "Restore" on the backup that appears in the list.

What to check after migrating

• You are logged out when the restore finishes. Log back in with the username and password from the source site.
• If every page except the home page returns 404, open "Settings" → "Permalinks" (設定 → パーマリンク in the Japanese UI) and click "Save Changes". For details, see "How to fix 404 errors after migrating WordPress".
• If the domain changed, check that the WordPress Address and Site Address in "Settings" → "General" (設定 → 一般) use the new domain, and that no old-domain URLs remain in content or images. On servers with WP-CLI, you can check like this.

# Show only how many matches there are, without replacing
wp search-replace 'https://old.example.com' 'https://new.example.com' --all-tables-with-prefix --dry-run

# Run it after checking the count
wp search-replace 'https://old.example.com' 'https://new.example.com' --all-tables-with-prefix

If --dry-run finds zero occurrences of the old domain, no replacement is needed. Cautions for wp search-replace are covered in "Safely bulk-replacing URLs and strings with WP-CLI search-replace".

Create a staging site

If you want to test plugin or theme updates before applying them to production, create a staging site (a copy of production).

1. Open "WPvivid Backup Plugin → Staging" and select the "Create a Staging Site" tab.
2. Choose the location (the site root or under /wp-content/) and a directory name. The directory name becomes part of the staging URL.
3. For the database, choose whether to create it in the same database as production with a different prefix, or to use a separate database.
4. Choose what to copy (the database, files, or both) and create it. Do not reload the page while it is being created.

The official documentation describes pushing changes tested on staging to production as a Pro feature (Staging Pro). With the free version, repeat the steps you verified on staging on production. Delete staging sites you no longer use to free up server space.

Cautions

• Backups on the server are normally stored in wp-content/wpvividbackups/ (the folder name can be changed in "Settings"). To avoid filling up the server, set how many to keep with "Backups retained" in "Settings", and also store copies outside the server, such as in the cloud. Enabling "Enable email report" sends you backup results by email.
• On large sites, backups and restores can stop at PHP execution-time or memory limits. The official documentation advises raising the PHP memory limit when you get timeout errors.
• A backup matters only if you can restore it. Test a restore on staging or a test server from time to time to confirm the steps and how long it takes.

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