How to back up my Magento v1 store

Hi there everyone
and welcome to this instalment of the Hussey Coding blog.

With world backup day having just happened we thought it would be a fantastic opportunity to firstly remind you to backup your store and secondly to show you how (in case you aren’t sure).

This "how to" guide is specifically for version 1of Magento and though the process is very similar to version 2 it's not exactly the same so if you are looking to backup your version 2 store we conveniently have another blog just for you.  However we do recommend switching to Magento 2 at your earliest opportunity as, although some developers, like Hussey Coding, will still offer support to Magento v1 users, all official support for Magento v1 will be ending sometime around June 2020. For more information on switching to v2 contact us at info@husseycoding.co.uk

It might be obvious as to why you would want to backup your store, let’s face it, you put a lot of work into making it perfect and losing all or even just a part of your store through accidental deletion or a crash would be at best mildly annoying, but do you actually back it up?

How many times have you thought “I need to backup my store but I also need to do these other 30 things … I’ll back it up tomorrow” or “First thing I’m gonna do when I get into work is backup my store” only to be distracted by a bunch of e-mails and before you know it baking up your store has become a distant memory, am I right?

Well, today is the PERFECT opportunity to backup your store

In this blog we will show you
 - How to enable your stores back up
 - How to back up your Magento v1 store and
 - How to schedule your backup.

Before we begin

Before we start it’s important for you to note 2 things about this method.

Firstly, when using this method, Magento will be putting all of it’s resources into backing up your store so you won’t be able to do anything at all while it’s backing up.

Obviously the more you backup the longer it will take so think about when you want to do it, if your store is at it’s busiest between 12pm and 3pm then that’s not the time you want to be backing up. Alternatively if you don’t want to lose any time at all there are other tools you can use to avoid your store going down however they are quite in depth and can be complicated so we would advise you speak with your store support team if you have one, if not we are happy to either help you backup your store or in some cases we can do it for you,

just e-mail us at info@hussyecoding.co.uk for more info.

Secondly, if you are using a version of Open Source Magento v1 later than version 1.9.3.0 then you will need to enable the backup option manually as it is disabled by default. We'll show you how to do that first but if you run an earlier version or have already enabled backup then just skip ahead.

Enabling backups
To enable backups you will need to log into your administration panel.
Along your tabs you will see “SYSTEMS”, hover over it and drop down to “CONFIGURATION”.

On the new screen, looking at the LEFT side of the screen, scroll all the way down until you get to the heading “ADVANCED” and then click “ADVANCED”

On the "DISABLE MODULES OUTPUT" page scroll down until you see "MAGE_BACKUP"

Change it from "DISABLE" to "ENABLE". Don't forget to save the configuration in the top right and then you are ready to back up your store.

Backing up your Magento v1 store

Log into your Magento administration menu. Along the tabs you will see “SYSTEMS”, hover over it to see the drop down menu

Click on “TOOLS” and then click “BACKUPS”

This will open a new page where you can create your backup

You have 3 options here

"SYSTEM BACKUP", "DATABASE AND MEDIA BACKUP" and "DATABASE BACKUP". It’s important that you know the difference between these so you know what you are backing up.

System backup

What it does - Creates a complete backup of the database and the file system. In the next step you can choose whether to include the media folder to the backup.

When to use it - This is your big backup, the one that will save everything, the big deal here is your files, if you import any file to make changes to your store from anywhere out side of the Magento framework you want to do a System backup, if you don’t and your store gets deleted you are going to have to reload all of your outside files all over again. You have the option here to backup your media files too, so all of your stock pictures, videos etc.

Database and media backup

What it does - Creates a backup of the database and the media folder.

When to use it – This option will backup everything apart from your external files that you have used to edit your store, so whatever changes you have made within the Magento framework are included as well as all of you media files.

Database backup

What it does – Creates a backup of the database

When to use it – This is your basic backup, all the changes you’re made to your store within the Magento framework are backed up but nothing else.

Now that you know what you want to backup it’s time to take the plunge. Once you’ve clicked on the option you want a little pop up will … pop up, it’s the same for every option.

Basically it’s telling you that you won’t be able to do anything with your store from either the front or back end while it’s backing up.

Click “OK” and you will see some more options.

Backup name – This is optional, if you don’t give it a name then the system will just allocate a name to it which is fine but it will make it harder for you to find a specific backup.

For example, I’m running 3 stores, 1 for the U.K., 1 for U.S.A. and 1for the French side of my business. There is a big French holiday coming up that I want to take advantage of so I want to completely re arrange my store for one weekend but what I don’t want to do is spend hours re arranging it and then hours putting it back to the way it was so I decide to backup.

I click my preferred option in backup and I call the file “French store before big weekend event March 2019”.

This makes it much easier for me to find that back up. If you don’t back up a lot then it may not be a big issue but if you have a lot going on with your site and multiple users backing up then it could become a nightmare.

Then there is a tick box that we highly recommend you click, basically this will redirect customers to a page that tells them your site is undergoing some maintenance and will be back up and running as soon as possible. Magento will automatically take you out of maintenance mode once your backup is complete so you don’t have to worry about checking up on it.

Click “OK” and you’ll see a lovely little “PLEASE WAIT” circle appear, this is your system backing up and as we have said before, you can’t do anything while it’s backing up, so be mindful of when you backup using this method.

Scheduling your backup
You also have the option to schedule your backups to avoid being up at 3am just to back up your store at it’s quietest time. To do this open up your Magento Administration panel and go to “SYSTEMS” and drop down to “CONFIGURATION”.

On the new screen, looking at the LEFT side of the screen, scroll all the way down until you get to the heading “ADVANCED” and then click “SYSTEM”

Another new screen will appear. Find the “SCHEDULED BACKUP SETTINGS” on the RIGHT and click the arrow to expand the box. You’ll see the the option is on NO, so just change it to YES.

A drop down menu will appear with a few more options for you, just fill them in as you would like and your all done.

It is important to note here that you can only schedule one backup at a time, so if you want to do weekly Database backups and monthly System backups you will need to change these setting each time.

Congratulations, you have just backed up your Magento store! If you are moving to Magento v2 any time soon (which we would recommend you do, for reasons appearing in an upcoming blog) then as I said earlier, this process is similar but not 100% the same so do look for our “How to back up your Magento v2 store” guide as well.

Thank you again for reading our blog and we hope it has been helpful to you. As always if you would like to get in touch with us here at Hussey Coding our contact details are below but until then, have a great day and stay safe.

Want to contact Hussey Coding? here's how
You can mail us at info@husseycoding.co.uk
follow us on Facebook, twitter and linkedin, just search Hussey Coding or
visit our website at www.husseycoding.co.uk