MainWP API Backups Extension

Every provider keeps your backups behind its own panel

One client is on Kinsta, two on Cloudways, another on a Droplet and the rest on cPanel. You are about to touch one of those sites and want a recent backup. So you open that provider's panel, look up the login and find the site. Tomorrow it is another provider's panel.

If your hosting already makes backups, what grows with each client is the number of panels you have to visit to reach them. Backup work is spread across as many places as you have providers.

API Backups connects the MainWP Dashboard to those providers through their APIs and brings creating, viewing and restoring child site backups into one place. The backups are still the provider's backups.

Create and restore from the MainWP Dashboard

• Per site: create a backup, view the available ones and restore the one you need for each child site.
• In bulk: run backups of several child sites at once.
• Overview: the Backups page lists child sites with backups available.
• Tab on each site: each child site's overview has an API Backups tab with all its backups.
• Multiple accounts: per-site settings let you use different accounts from the same provider, except on Cloudways and GridPane.
• Automatic detection: Cloudways and GridPane sites are detected on their own.

Eight providers, each with its own way of connecting

• cPanel: native and WP Toolkit backups.
• Plesk: WP Toolkit backups. You enter only the panel URL and the Main Site ID, taking care not to confuse it with the Domain ID.
• Kinsta: account email, API key, Company ID and Environment ID.
• Cloudways: uses an Access Token.
• GridPane: requires an owner account on a Developer plan or higher.
• DigitalOcean: Personal Access Token with full access and no expiration.
• Vultr: full API integration.
• Akamai (Linode): full API integration.

Where backups stay and what falls outside

Your provider decides the storage location. API Backups uses your hosting provider's storage settings, and that storage is configured with the provider.

It only reaches what has an integration. A host outside the list above has nothing to connect to here.

Kinsta has its own rules. Its restore points can be restored or deleted, but they are not downloadable ZIP files. Those ZIP files are created in MyKinsta, with the limits Kinsta sets.

cPanel needs preparation. Backups are disabled on new installations, and without automatic backups the first one may have to be triggered by hand. Each WordPress site must sit in its own folder, and paths are case-sensitive.

Connecting your first provider

You need MainWP Dashboard with child sites connected, the API Backups module enabled, and API credentials with access to your provider's backups.

1. Open the API Backups settings from the user menu at the top right, under MainWP Settings.
2. Enter the provider's credentials and save. If new ones fail, the previous ones stay active.
3. On each child site, except Cloudways and GridPane ones, open its Edit page, choose the provider, enter the Instance ID and save.
4. Create a backup of a low-stakes site and check that it appears in its API Backups tab.

Backups outside the provider with other pieces

If you want a backup that does not rely on the host, UpdraftPlus sends incremental backups to Drive, Dropbox or S3, with encryption. To run it from the same dashboard, MainWP UpdraftPlus Extension schedules backups and restores on child sites, and requires UpdraftPlus installed and active on each one.

MainWP also has its Built-In Backups, which do not need a backup plugin on child sites.

API Backups day to day

Does it work without MainWP?

No. It works inside MainWP Dashboard and on child sites already connected.

Do I have to enter the Instance ID for every site?

Not on Cloudways or GridPane, where sites are detected on their own. On the rest, yes.

Where is storage configured?

With your provider: API Backups uses its storage settings.

Can I download a Kinsta backup?

Its restore points are not downloadable ZIP files. ZIP files are created in MyKinsta.

Why does cPanel show no backups?

They are disabled on new installations. If a red notice appears in File and Directory Restoration, you need to enable them from the terminal by forcing a first backup.