How to manage backups in the Kiravo control panel

Backups in the Kiravo control panel come in two flavours: automatic backups taken on a schedule, and manual backups you trigger yourself. This guide covers everything you can do with both: taking a manual snapshot, restoring all or part of a backup, and exporting a copy of your website or email data to your local machine.

To open the Backups area, go to your website’s dashboard and click the Backups tab in the top menu bar. You’ll see a list of every available backup with a Create backup button at the top right.

Reading the backup list

Each backup in the list shows what’s inside it:

• Date and time the backup was taken.
• A MANUAL (purple) or AUTOMATIC (orange) badge.
• Files — the total size of the website’s files, with a document icon.
• Databases — how many databases are included, with a database (cylinder) icon.
• Emails — how many mailboxes are included, with an envelope icon.
• A Restore dropdown button — see Restore a backup below.

Older automatic backups taken before you installed an app might only contain email; newer ones contain everything. Check the icons before you restore — make sure the backup actually has what you want to recover.

Create a manual backup

To take an on-demand backup (most useful right before a risky change):

1. Click Create backup at the top right.
2. The “Backup website” dialog opens.
3. Optional: type a Backup note so you can recognise this backup later (for example, “Before WordPress 7.0 update”, “Pre-redesign baseline”). The note shows next to the backup in the list — invaluable when you have many backups.
4. Click Backup now.

The backup runs in the background. Depending on how much data your site has, this can take anywhere from a few seconds to a few minutes. When it finishes, the manual backup appears at the top of the list with a purple MANUAL badge.

When to take a manual backup

• Before updating WordPress core, plugins, or themes — especially major-version updates.
• Before editing the database directly — phpMyAdmin queries, SQL imports.
• Before installing a new plugin — particularly one from outside the WordPress directory.
• Before changing PHP version — see Change PHP version.
• Before any large migration — moving content in, restructuring URLs, switching themes.
• At a “known good” point in development — when the site is exactly how you want it.

Note

Manual vs automatic backups. Automatic backups run on a schedule and have a retention window (older ones are eventually deleted to make room for newer ones). Manual backups give you a deliberately-timed restore point. Use both: rely on automatic for “something happened yesterday,” and take manual ones before any risky change.

Restore a backup

On the row of the backup you want, click the Restore dropdown. What you see depends on what the backup contains:

• Full website — restore everything (files + databases + email) in a single operation. (On an email-only backup, this option appears as All mailboxes.)
• Custom — open the selective restore screen to pick what to bring back.

Full website restore

Use this when something has clearly gone wrong and you just want to roll the whole site back to a known-good state — for example, after a bad update or a failed migration.

1. Click the Restore dropdown on the chosen backup.
2. Choose Full website.
3. Confirm the action when prompted.

The restore runs in the background. When it finishes, your site is back at the state of the chosen backup. Anything that happened after that backup is gone.

Custom restore (files, databases, mailboxes)

Custom restore lets you pick specific files, databases, or mailboxes to bring back — useful when only part of the site is broken and you want to preserve everything else.

1. Click the Restore dropdown on the chosen backup.
2. Choose Custom.
3. The Custom restore screen opens with one card per category (Files, Databases, Emails). Only categories included in this backup are shown.

Files (Home directory)

A full file browser of the backup’s home directory, with a folder tree and a file listing showing name, size, modified date, and permissions.

• Tick Select all to include everything.
• Or tick individual files and folders to restore just those items.

Useful when you’ve accidentally deleted or overwritten a specific file — tick just that file and restore, and the rest of the site is untouched.

Databases

Lists every database in the backup with Name and Size columns and a checkbox per database.

Caution

Database users are not restored when you do a partial database restore. If you only restore one database (not all of them), the user accounts that connect to it are not brought back. The database itself is restored, but any app trying to log in to it via the missing user can’t connect. Restore all databases — or use Full website — if you need the users too.

Emails

Lists every mailbox in the backup. Tick Select all or tick specific mailboxes.

Note

Email restores merge, not overwrite. Messages already in the inbox stay there; the backup’s messages are added back alongside them. You won’t lose recent mail, but the inbox may end up with duplicates if the same messages appear in both.

A safety habit worth adopting

Before clicking the final confirm, take a fresh manual backup of the current state (see Create a manual backup above). It takes a few seconds and gives you something to go back to if the restore turns out to be the wrong choice.

Download website data

The website’s per-page ⋮ menu (top-right of the website’s main page, next to the website name) has a Download website data option that exports a full archive to your local machine. Use this when:

• You’re migrating away to a different host and want a complete local copy.
• You want a long-term local archive beyond what automatic backups retain.

To run the export:

1. Open the website’s page in the control panel.
2. Click the ⋮ menu in the top-right corner.
3. Choose Download website data.
4. The export starts. Depending on size, this can take a while.
5. When ready, a download link appears — click it to save the archive.

Note

This is a resource-intensive operation. For everyday “before a small change” backups, the manual backup option above is faster and stays inside the panel.

Download email data

The same ⋮ menu also has a Download email data option that exports every mailbox on the site as a portable archive. Same shape as the website-data export, just for mailbox contents instead of files. Useful when migrating away or doing a long-term mailbox archival.

The archive contains every mailbox’s messages preserved in standard formats (typically mbox or eml per mailbox). Most email clients can import the result directly.