Time-Machine Backups for WordPress

Restore your site to any moment

Every file change and every database write is captured as it happens. Roll back to any second — not just to last night's backup. Encrypted, deduplicated, shipped off-site to S3, Dropbox, Google Drive and more.

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XChaCha20-Poly1305 encryption 14-day money-back guarantee
Time-Machine Restore
Incremental File & DB Capture
End-to-End Encryption
9+ Storage Destinations
Disaster Recovery Kit
Full WP-CLI Support
Any second restore to any moment in time — not just to the last snapshot
9+ storage destinations / S3, Dropbox, Google Drive, SFTP & more
1 click staged restore with atomic swap and instant rollback

A Nightly Backup Is Not Enough

When something breaks at 4 PM, restoring last night's backup loses a whole day of orders, posts and comments.

Must-Have Backup captures every file change and every database write as it happens. Combined with weekly full snapshots, this means you can restore your site to any moment — right before the bad plugin update, right before the accidental delete — without losing anything that happened earlier that day.

Restore to Any Moment
Zero Data Loss
Real-time File & Database Backup
Weekly Full Snapshots
Instant Point-in-Time Restores
Works with Any WordPress Site
Secure, Encrypted & Offsite Storage

Backup Like It's 2026. Not 2010.

Deduplicated snapshots, continuous incremental capture, encrypted off-site storage and a restore flow that can't brick your site.

Smart Snapshots

  • Full file + database snapshots
  • Content-addressed chunk store (SHA-256)
  • Deduplication — repeat snapshots are nearly free
  • Flexible exclusions: paths, globs, extensions, DB tables
  • Cache folders excluded by default

Incremental Engine

  • Continuous file change scanner
  • Database write capture — every INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE
  • Triggered by plugin/theme updates and uploads
  • Near-zero overhead on page loads
  • Plays nicely with HyperDB / LudicrousDB

Time-Machine Restore

  • Restore to any moment, not just snapshot times
  • Staged restore — live site untouched until you promote
  • Atomic swap with one-click rollback
  • Per-table restore times (segmented restore)
  • Missing chunks fetched from any destination

Off-Site Storage

  • Amazon S3, Backblaze B2, Wasabi, DO Spaces, MinIO
  • Dropbox & Google Drive
  • WebDAV — Nextcloud, ownCloud, Synology
  • SFTP, FTP, FTPS and local folders
  • Background upload queue with bundled transport

Encryption

  • One-password setup wizard
  • Modern cryptography: Argon2id + XChaCha20-Poly1305
  • Encrypted before upload — storage providers see nothing
  • Envelope mode — optionally offline-only private key

Retention & Management

  • Snapshot × destination matrix view
  • Per-destination "keep last N" retention
  • Pin snapshots you never want swept
  • Refcounted delete — shared chunks stay safe
  • Daily automatic retention sweep

Disaster Recovery

  • Password-locked standalone recovery.php
  • Restores even when WordPress won't load
  • No WordPress boot — immune to fatal errors
  • Self-deletes after successful recovery
  • Per-IP rate limiting against brute force

Site Migration

  • One-click migration bundle (ZIP + installer.php)
  • Runs standalone on the target server
  • Serialized-aware URL search & replace
  • Installer self-deletes when done

Monitoring & Automation

  • Email, Slack & Discord notifications
  • Automatic integrity checks on stored chunks
  • Storage quota warnings
  • Scheduled restore drills
  • Full WP-CLI command set

See It in Action

Watch how Must-Have Backup captures every change and restores your site to any moment.

Time-Machine Restore

Traditional backups give you fixed restore points: last night, last week. Must-Have Backup is different. On top of full snapshots, it continuously records every file change and every database write — so you can restore your site to any moment in time.

A bad plugin update at 14:33? Restore to 14:32. An accidental bulk delete? Roll back to the second before. You can even restore different tables to different times — keep this afternoon's orders while rolling your content back to the morning.

A Restore That Can't Brick Your Site

Every restore happens in two safe phases. First, the snapshot is rebuilt in an isolated staging area — files in a separate folder, tables under a separate prefix. Your live site keeps running, completely untouched. You can inspect everything before going further.

When you're ready, Promote performs an atomic swap: files and tables are renamed into place in seconds, with maintenance mode protecting the switch. Something's not right? Rollback reverses the whole swap with one click. Nothing is permanently deleted until you hit Confirm.

Deduplicated, Incremental, Fast

Files are stored in a content-addressed chunk store: every chunk is identified by its SHA-256 hash, so identical content is stored exactly once. Your second snapshot costs almost no disk space — only what actually changed.

Between snapshots, an incremental scanner tracks created, modified and deleted files, while a lightweight database dropin captures every write operation. Plugin updates, theme switches and media uploads trigger scans automatically.

Your Backups, Your Storage

Send encrypted backups to Amazon S3, Backblaze B2, Wasabi, DigitalOcean Spaces, MinIO, Dropbox, Google Drive, Nextcloud/WebDAV, SFTP, FTP — or any combination of them. Each destination has its own retention policy.

Uploads run in a background queue, so snapshots never block your site. For network destinations, chunks are packed into ~64 MB bundles — hundreds of small files become a handful of fast transfers. No vendor lock-in, no monthly storage bill from us: you bring the storage you already have.

Encrypted Before It Leaves Your Server

Enable encryption with a single password — no key files to juggle, no certificate setup. Under the hood: Argon2id key derivation and XChaCha20-Poly1305 authenticated encryption, the same primitives used by modern password managers.

Chunks are encrypted before they are uploaded, so your storage provider only ever sees random bytes. For maximum security, envelope mode can keep the private key completely offline — then even a fully compromised server can't decrypt your existing backups.

Recovery Kit: When WordPress Won't Even Load

The worst case isn't losing a file — it's a site so broken that wp-admin won't load at all. For that day, there's the Recovery Kit: a single, self-contained PHP file you generate in your musthaveplugins.com account and store offline.

Upload it next to wp-config.php, open it in a browser, enter your password — and it restores your site without booting WordPress at all. A fatal error, a broken database or a half-migrated site can't stop it. When it's done, it deletes itself. No standing attack surface, no permanent endpoint.

Migrate Sites in Minutes

Moving to a new host or domain? The Migrate tab builds a single ZIP containing your whole site and a standalone installer.php. Upload both to the new server, open the installer, and it imports the database, extracts the files and rewrites every URL.

The search-replace is serialization-aware — PHP serialized values keep correct length prefixes, so widgets, theme options and page builder content survive intact. The installer self-deletes when the migration is complete.

Trust, But Verify

A backup you've never tested is a hope, not a plan. Must-Have Backup continuously verifies itself: integrity checks re-hash stored chunks on a schedule and alert you at the first sign of corruption. Storage quota monitoring warns you before a destination fills up.

Optional restore drills periodically stage your newest snapshot into a throwaway area, sanity-check it, and clean up — proving your backups actually restore. Get notified about all of it via email, Slack or Discord, and automate everything with the full WP-CLI command set.

Sleep Well. Every Byte Is Safe.

Continuous capture. Encrypted off-site storage. Restores that actually work.

Get Must-Have Backup Now
Restore to any moment in time
Staged restore — your live site is never at risk

Simple, Transparent Pricing

Every feature in every plan. Backups always run — even if your subscription lapses.

Single

$29.99 /year
  • 1 website
  • Time-machine restore
  • Incremental backups
  • Multiple remote storages
  • Backup health checks
  • Recovery Kit
  • Updates & support
Purchase

Multi

$79.99 /year
  • 5 websites
  • Time-machine restore
  • Incremental backups
  • Multiple remote storages
  • Backup health checks
  • Recovery Kit
  • Updates & support
Purchase
Best Value

Must-Have Pack

$59.99 /month
  • UNLIMITED websites
  • ALL Must-Have Plugins included
  • Backup
  • Analytics
  • Performance
  • Cookie
  • Bug Monitor
  • Tweaks
Purchase
14-Day Money-Back Guarantee

Try it risk-free. Not for you? Every cent back — no questions asked.

Frequently Asked Questions

No. Full snapshots run in the background via cron, the incremental file scanner runs out-of-band, and the database capture buffers writes in memory and flushes them once at the end of each request. Page loads are not measurably affected.

Locally on your server by default, plus any destinations you configure: Amazon S3, Backblaze B2, Wasabi, DigitalOcean Spaces, MinIO, Dropbox, Google Drive, Nextcloud/WebDAV, SFTP, FTP/FTPS or another local folder. You bring your own storage — we never hold your data.

Restores are staged first — your live site keeps running untouched. The swap is atomic and fully reversible: the previous live version is kept in a holding area until you explicitly confirm. One click on Rollback puts everything back exactly as it was.

Yes. The Recovery Kit is a standalone PHP file that never boots WordPress. Upload it next to wp-config.php, enter your password, and it restores your site directly — even with a fatal error, a broken db.php or a corrupt database. It deletes itself when done.

Far less than you would expect. Chunks are deduplicated by content hash, so unchanged files are stored once no matter how many snapshots reference them. A typical second snapshot adds only the data that actually changed.

No. Backups always keep running — we believe your data safety should never be held hostage. An active subscription is required for restore operations, updates and support.

State of the art: Argon2id password hashing and XChaCha20-Poly1305 authenticated encryption via libsodium. Data is encrypted before upload, so storage providers only see random bytes. Envelope mode can keep the private key entirely offline for protection even against a compromised server.

Yes. The Migrate tab builds a ZIP with a standalone installer that imports the database, extracts files and rewrites all URLs — with serialization-aware search & replace, so page builder content and theme options survive intact.

Automatic integrity checks re-hash and verify stored chunks on a schedule. Optional restore drills periodically stage your newest snapshot into a throwaway area and sanity-check it. You get alerted by email, Slack or Discord if anything is off.

Fully. Snapshots, restore, verify, storage management, queue control and delta shipping are all available under wp mh-backup — perfect for system cron jobs and CI pipelines.

The Last Backup Plugin You'll Ever Install

Join WordPress professionals who stopped hoping their backups work — and started knowing.

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