About a week ago MakeUseOf wrote a great post titled 4 free tools for fool-proof WordPress backup, which does a great job covering some tools you can use to safeguard your work.  After reading this post, I figured this would be a good opportunity to talk a bit about backing up your blog, and the free WordPress available to use.

The first plugin I wanted to cover is one of my favorite WordPress plugins, known as WP-DB Manager.  This plugin is designed to be a more advanced database management system.   It will actually add a Database tab to your dashboard which allows you to fully manage it.  Management options range from backing up your database, restoring your backups that you’ve previously made, optimizing and repairing your database, or even delete your unused tables (typically used for old plugins tables you no longer use).  This plugin will give you the most control, but requires some advanced use to setup and use.

If you feel this plugin may be a little to advanced for you and just need the backup, I recommend using an alternative plugin known as WordPress Database Backup.   This plugin will basically allow you to backup your database with the click of a button and download it, add it to your FTP, or even have it e-mailed to you.  It also allows you to schedule automatic backups to be e-mailed to you.  The biggest drawback with this plugin is that it doesn’t offer an easy way to restore your database from the backup if something comes up.

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