Best Practices for Backing Up Your Beaver Builder Website

What New Users Need to Know

You’ve spent hours perfecting your layouts in Beaver Builder. Whether you’ve been styling rows, saving global modules, or tweaking your templates, it’s important to protect your work.

If your site crashes, an update breaks something, or your host has an issue, a good backup can be the difference between a quick fix and a full rebuild.

In this guide, we’ll walk you through the best ways to back up your Beaver Builder website and make sure your layouts, designs, and settings are safe.

Why Backups Matter (Especially for Page Builder Sites)

Beaver Builder stores content inside your WordPress database, including your saved rows, templates, and Themer layouts. If your database becomes corrupted or deleted, your layouts could be lost.

Backing up just your files won’t be enough. A full backup includes:

WordPress files (plugins, themes, media)
Database (content and layout data)

A reliable backup system helps you recover quickly from problems and gives you the confidence to make changes, test new features, or run updates without fear.

Use a Full-Site Backup Plugin (Database and Files Together)

To properly back up your Beaver Builder site, choose a backup tool that includes both your site files and the database.

Recommended tools:

UpdraftPlus – Easy to use and supports scheduled backups to Google Drive, Dropbox, and others.

WPVivid – Also free, with a simple interface and migration features.

BlogVault or Jetpack Backup – Premium options with real-time backups and staging tools.

Your hosting provider – Many managed hosts offer automated daily backups, but always check the details.

Tip: Set your schedule based on how often your site changes. A daily backup is ideal for active sites, while weekly is fine for low-traffic or static pages.

Export Your Beaver Builder Templates and Layouts

Beaver Builder includes a built-in export tool that lets you save your custom templates, saved rows, and Themer layouts as files.

To export:

Go to Tools > Export in your WordPress dashboard.
Choose what you want to export (e.g. "Templates" or "Saved Layouts").
Download the XML file and store it somewhere safe.

You can later re-import these to the same site or a different one, which is great for backups and site migrations.

Don’t Forget the Media Library

Test Your Backups Regularly

Creating backups is important, but testing them is just as critical. A backup that doesn’t work properly can be more dangerous than none at all.

How to test:

Restore a backup on a staging site (most premium hosts offer this).
Use WP Staging to clone your site and test restore options in a safe space.
Occasionally try re-importing a saved template or layout to confirm that export files are valid.

Tip: Add notes to your backup filenames like “Before theme update” or “Post-launch” to make it easier to find the version you need later.

Export Your Customiser Settings

If you’ve made design changes using the WordPress Customiser, those settings may not be included in all backup tools.

To be safe, export your customiser settings manually using the Customizer Export/Import plugin (developed by the Beaver Builder team).

This allows you to save and later restore:

Global colours
Fonts and typography settings
Header and footer layouts

This step is especially useful if you work with child themes or custom branding.

Keep Your Backup Files Secure

Backups contain sensitive information about your site. It’s important to store them in secure, private locations.

Tips for keeping backups safe:

Store copies in multiple locations (e.g. local hard drive, cloud storage, external USB).
Avoid keeping backup files in your public site folder (e.g. /public_html/) where anyone might access them.
Use cloud storage tools with encryption, such as Google Drive or Dropbox with password protection.

Always Back Up Before Major Changes

Final Thoughts

Backups don’t just protect your website. They protect your time, your designs, and your peace of mind.

With a simple backup strategy in place, you can experiment confidently and know that you’re covered if something unexpected happens.

Whether you’re managing your own site or building for clients, these best practices will help you avoid disasters and bounce back quickly when needed.

Joe's Top Tips

Use a full-site backup plugin that includes both files and database

Export your Beaver Builder templates and saved layouts regularly

Always include the Media Library in your backups

Test your backups on a staging site or with import checks

Back up before any major update or change

Store your backups in multiple, secure locations

Export Customiser settings separately if needed