📽️ Video Guide 📽️

In this article, we will learn how to make backups for our server. We can do this either manually or automatically! We highly encourage you to use our backup system to keep your server safe from attackers, griefers, and hackers. Please note, we do not allow backup plugins on our servers. Using backup plugins may result in the termination of your server!

📩 Creating a Manual Backup 📩

To get started, make sure you're at WitherPanel and you are at the server you want to create the backup for. Start by going to the backups section.



Once you're on that page, you'll see the button to create a backup. Click on that button, and a window will pop up.



In that window, you can provide a name for the backup, as well as specify any files you want to ignore. For example, if you want to ignore the coreprotect folder located in plugins, you can write plugins/coreprotect.

For each directory or file you do not want backed up, you need to go to the next line and then write out the directory. An example of an ignored files list, ignoring coreprotect's plugin folder, logs folder, and server.jar is shown below:

server.jar
plugins/coreprotect
logs

You can also choose to lock the backup, which means that it cannot be deleted unless it is unlocked by you. This is useful when you have server subusers with the ability to delete backups. Once you've configured your backup, simply click on "Create Backup".



Give it a few minutes, and your backup will be created in the backups section. Remember that the time it takes for a backup to complete is based on your server size. The bigger the server, the longer it takes.

🤔 What You Can Do with the Backup 🤔

To manage your backup, click on the three dots on the right. You can then choose to:

Copy Link - Get a link to download the backup file. This is useful when you want to share backups with people who cannot access your backups tab in the panel.
Download - Download the backup with all its contents. Note that every single file (except for ignored directories/files) will be downloaded. You can use a program such as 7-Zip to extract the downloaded archive on your computer.
Rename - Rename the backup to a name of your choice.
Restore - Restore the backup to the server, deleting all the current server files and restoring all the files into the server.
Lock - Lock the backup to make it inaccessible for downloading, restoration, or deletion. You can always unlock it later.
Delete - Delete the backup. Note that once deleted, it cannot be recovered.

🔃 Creating Automatic Backups 🔃

Creating automatic backups requires some additional setup, but this will automatically back up your server without the need to use the backup function every time. It is very handy and is always recommended to have backups of your server regularly. This ensures you always have the latest copy of data if something goes wrong with your server.

⏲️ Creating the Schedule ⏲️

Select the server you wish to add the automatic backups to.
Select "Schedules" on the sidebar of the panel.



Click the blue "Create Schedule" button.
Enter the times that you want the backup to run, in cron time format. In our case, we will do it every 6 hours. Click on create schedule.

☁️ Creating the Task ☁️

You can then click on the schedule you just created and hit the "New Task" button.
From the "Action" dropdown, select "Create Backup." This is also the step where you can add folders to ignore in the backup, if you wish. Then just click "Create Task."

💭 Conclusion 💭

Your automatic backups should now be working! If you need more help with schedules, you can go to this article to learn more! Backups are very crucial for keeping your server safe. Even if you may not be using them as often as you would think, you will be grateful for them when you need them.

If you still face issues, don't hesitate to reach out for assistance through live chat!

Updated on: 12/04/2025