Take a snapshot backup
Create an on-demand JetBackup snapshot of your cPanel account before making significant changes, and check that it completed.
Take a manual backup of your cPanel account immediately before a risky change — a plugin update, a theme switch, a database migration. Applies to shared and reseller hosting.
WebGee backs up every shared and reseller account daily, so a snapshot is not your safety net for day-to-day accidents. It is for the specific case where you are about to change something and want a restore point from just before it.
Before you begin
Snapshots have limits worth knowing before you rely on one:
- One snapshot per cPanel account. Taking a second one removes the first.
- Kept for two days, then deleted automatically.
- Not available on large accounts — over roughly 5 GB, or with a very high inode count.
A snapshot lives on WebGee's infrastructure alongside your account. For anything you cannot afford to lose, take a backup you keep somewhere else as well — see Generate and download a backup.
Take the snapshot
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In cPanel, open JetBackup 5.
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Select Accounts.
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Select your account, then choose Create Backup on Demand.
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Confirm when prompted.
Check it completed
The snapshot is queued, not instant. Do not start your change until it has finished.
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In JetBackup 5, select Queue.
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Wait for your backup to report as complete.
How long this takes depends on the size of your account — small sites finish in a minute or two.
If the option is missing
Create Backup on Demand is hidden when your account is too large to snapshot. Check your usage under cPanel → Disk Usage; if you are near or over 5 GB, or have a very large number of small files, use a plugin or script to generate an on-demand backup instead.