ShieldBACKUPS Coverage: What Gets Backed Up (and What Doesn’t)

When it comes to WordPress backups, understanding exactly what data is included — and what isn’t — is crucial for ensuring you can fully recover your site when needed.

Here’s a detailed breakdown of what ShieldBACKUPS covers — and what it intentionally excludes — along with the reasons behind these decisions.

What Does ShieldBACKUPS Include?

ShieldBACKUPS backs up the core components needed to restore a fully functional WordPress site:

  • WordPress Core Files

The essential files that make WordPress itself run.

  • Site Database

All data stored in your MySQL/MariaDB database, including posts, pages, comments, settings, users, and plugin data.

  • Themes

All installed themes, both active and inactive.

  • Plugins

All installed plugins along with their settings (in the database).

  • Uploads Folder

Your entire media library — images, videos, PDFs, documents — stored in /wp-content/uploads/.

ShieldBACKUPS ensures these critical elements are fully backed up, giving you the ability to restore your site’s core functionality if something goes wrong.

What Does ShieldBACKUPS Exclude — And Why?

To maintain fast, reliable, and secure backups, ShieldBACKUPS intentionally excludes certain files and folders that don’t impact site recovery or can introduce risks or bloat:

  • Archive Files

Common archive formats such as .zip, .gz, .gzip, .tar are excluded to avoid backing up old backups or compressed files that can be stored elsewhere.

  • Backup Archives from Other Plugins

Backups created by other plugins are ignored to prevent redundancy and storage bloat.

  • Version Control Directories

Folders like .git or .svn are excluded as they are not needed for site recovery.

  • SQL Export Dumps

Database export files such as .sql are skipped to avoid unnecessary duplication.

  • Server Log Files

Including error logs and large plugin-generated logs (e.g., Shield’s Activity Logs) are excluded to keep backups efficient.

  • Cache and Temporary Files

Cache directories and temporary plugin files are excluded since these can be regenerated.

  • Transient Options

Transient data stored in the WordPress options table is excluded as it can be regenerated.

  • Large Files Over 200MB

Very large files are excluded because they should not be stored primarily on webhosts and can cause performance issues.

Why These Exclusions Matter

  • Backup Speed and Efficiency

Avoiding unnecessary files reduces the time and resources needed to create and store backups.

  • Storage Space Management

Excluding large, redundant, or temporary files prevents backups from growing too large and hitting storage limits.

  • Security

Not backing up transient or cache data reduces risk of including sensitive or potentially compromised temporary files.

  • Clean Restorations

Backups contain only what’s needed to restore your site properly without clutter from unrelated files.

For storage implications of included and excluded files, see ShieldBACKUPS Storage: Retention & Limits. For detailed setup instructions and activation steps, see our Quick Start Guide.

What About WordPress Multisite?

ShieldBACKUPS supports backing up WordPress Multisite networks, but only the main site’s files and database are backed up. Individual subsites are backed up within the entire Multisite backup, but are not backed up separately.

You can read more about this here.

If you're unsure whether something on your site is included in the backup, feel free to reach out to us.

For more details on ShieldBACKUPS, read our release blog article here.