Backup Module Retired in 1.6.5 — Migrate to SiteVault
GuardPress 1.6.5 retired the built-in backup module. The plugin no longer creates scheduled or on-demand backups. If you had backups before the upgrade, they’re still in wp-content/uploads/guardpress-backups/ and the Backups admin page still lets you download, restore, or delete them — only the “create new backup” path is gone. For ongoing scheduled backups with cloud storage, the answer is SiteVault Pro.
What Changed in 1.6.5
Three things happened in the 1.6.5 release:
- The scheduled backup cron (
guardpress_backup_schedule) was permanently unscheduled and will not be re-registered on activation, deactivation, or upgrade. - The on-demand “Create Backup” AJAX endpoint (
wp_ajax_guardpress_run_backup_now) is no longer hooked. Clicking any leftover “Create Backup” button does nothing meaningful. - The Backups admin page no longer gates on license status — both Lite and Pro users can retrieve their pre-existing backup files.
The 1.6.14 release tidied this up further by removing the stale “Create Backup” button from the Security Dashboard’s Quick Actions, replacing it with a “Review Firewall” shortcut. If you’re on 1.6.5 – 1.6.13 you may still see the dead Create Backup button; updating clears it.
Why GuardPress Stopped Doing Backups
The built-in backup module did one thing: it dumped the database to a .sql file inside wp-content/uploads/guardpress-backups/ on a schedule. That covers a single failure mode — you have an intact server with a corrupted database and a recent dump on the same disk.
Every backup story that actually matters needs more than that:
- Off-site storage. If the disk dies, on-disk backups die with it.
- Files plus database. A WordPress site is also
wp-content/uploads/, themes, plugins, and custom code. Database-only restores leave you missing every uploaded image and every customization. - Incremental + retention windows. Daily full dumps of a 5 GB site eat disk fast. Daily incrementals with weekly fulls and a 30/60/90-day retention window need real backup software.
- One-click restore on a different host. Migration is the same workflow as restore. A backup tool that doesn’t migrate doesn’t really restore.
SiteVault Pro was built for that. GuardPress is a security plugin. Trying to keep both products aligned on backup feature parity meant either GuardPress kept building features that already existed in SiteVault, or SiteVault customers got worse backups in GuardPress. The cleanest answer was to stop pretending GuardPress’s 200-line backup module was a real backup product and point people at the one that is.
Retrieving Your Pre-1.6.5 Backups
If you had backups from before 1.6.5, they’re still on disk and the admin UI still works.
Open the GuardPress Backups admin page
In wp-admin: GuardPress → Backups. The page lists every backup file currently in wp-content/uploads/guardpress-backups/ with its date, size, and three actions: Download, Restore, Delete.
Download anything you want to keep
Click Download next to each backup you want. The file is delivered as a .sql dump. Save it somewhere off-server — cloud storage, your local machine, a NAS — before going further. Once you delete a backup from the admin page it’s gone.
Restore if you actually need to
Click Restore on the backup you want to roll back to. The restore replaces the current database with the contents of the .sql dump. Files in wp-content/uploads/, themes, plugins, and custom code are not touched — this was always a database-only backup.
Delete what you don’t need
Once you’ve downloaded the backups you want to keep, you can delete the rest from the admin page to reclaim disk space. Or leave them — they don’t cost anything to sit there.
The original 1.6.5 release notes mentioned a 90-day deprecation window for the Backups admin page. In practice the Restore, Download, and Delete handlers stayed hooked in the plugin code with no end-of-life gate — they keep working as long as the module file is present. If a future release removes the Backups page entirely, the announcement will go out via the WP.org changelog before it happens.
Switching to SiteVault Pro
SiteVault Pro replaces the backup duty entirely — scheduled file + database backups, off-site cloud storage, incremental snapshots, and one-click restore-to-new-host migration. Install it alongside GuardPress; there’s no conflict (GuardPress doesn’t register any backup cron anymore, so there’s nothing for SiteVault to collide with).
Get SiteVault Pro
From the SiteVault page on Royal Plugins, or directly via your My Account dashboard if you already have a Royal Plugins license. Install the plugin zip into Plugins → Add New → Upload Plugin and activate.
Connect cloud storage
In wp-admin: SiteVault → Storage. Pick a destination (S3-compatible, Google Drive, Dropbox, or local-only if you really want it). Off-site is what you want here — that’s the gap GuardPress’s on-disk dumps left open.
Schedule recurring backups
In wp-admin: SiteVault → Schedules. Daily database, weekly full (database + files + themes + plugins) is a reasonable starting point for most sites. Adjust retention to taste — SiteVault handles the cleanup so you don’t accumulate years of dumps.
Run one full backup immediately
Before relying on the schedule, click Backup Now once. Watch the run complete, confirm the file lands in your cloud bucket, and try a test restore in a staging environment. You don’t want to discover an SMTP misconfig or a permissions issue six months later when you actually need the backup.
Then delete your old GuardPress backups
Once SiteVault is humming, the old .sql dumps in wp-content/uploads/guardpress-backups/ are redundant. Download anything you still want to keep, then delete from the GuardPress Backups admin page. Reclaim the disk.
If the Backups Tab Ever Disappears
The backup files are plain .sql dumps living on disk. You don’t need the GuardPress admin UI to recover them — you need filesystem access (SSH, SFTP, your host’s File Manager, etc.).
The files are at:
wp-content/uploads/guardpress-backups/Filenames follow the pattern backup-YYYY-MM-DD-HH-MM-SS.sql — UTC timestamps. To restore one manually, import the .sql file into your WordPress database with the host’s database tool (phpMyAdmin, Adminer) or via WP-CLI:
wp db import wp-content/uploads/guardpress-backups/backup-2026-01-15-03-00-00.sqlThe .sql dumps include DROP TABLE statements followed by CREATE TABLE and INSERT for every table. Importing one against a live site replaces the current data wholesale. Take a fresh dump first (wp db export) so you have a rollback option if the import doesn’t go where you expected.
The directory also contains an .htaccess file that denies all HTTP access — nobody can download your backups by guessing URLs. Leave it in place.
Common Situations
I just see a “backup module retired” admin notice. Did I lose anything?
No. The notice fires only on sites that actually used the backup module — either the toggle was enabled, or backup files still exist on disk. Your files are exactly where they were before. Click the dismiss link on the notice; it’s site-wide-dismissible and won’t come back.
I see no Backups admin page at all
You either never used GuardPress’s backup feature on this site (the tab only stays for sites that used it) or you’re on a fresh install of 1.6.5+ where the feature was already retired. There’s nothing to retrieve. Install SiteVault Pro and start fresh.
My Backups admin page lists files but Download / Restore do nothing
Check the browser console for AJAX errors. The three AJAX handlers (guardpress_restore_backup, guardpress_download_backup, guardpress_delete_backup) are still registered in 1.6.37; if they’re returning 403 or 500, the most common cause is a missing or expired nonce after a long-idle admin session. Hard refresh the page and try again. If the issue persists, the backup file may be unreadable due to filesystem permissions on wp-content/uploads/guardpress-backups/.
I’m on the GuardPress Lite (free) wp.org version, can I still get my backups?
Yes. As of 1.6.5 the Backups admin page no longer requires a Pro license — both Lite and Pro users can download, restore, and delete pre-existing backup files. Only the “create new” path was removed, and that wasn’t available to Lite users anyway.
Can I just keep using the old backup files indefinitely?
The files don’t expire on their own. They sit on disk until you (or your host) delete them. But the backups stop being useful the moment your site state diverges far enough from the last dump that restoring would overwrite work you don’t want to lose. A backup from six months ago is rarely the right answer to a problem you have today. Switch to a real backup tool with rolling fresh snapshots.
SiteVault Pro is overkill for my small site — what are my options?
Two options. SiteVault Lite is free on WordPress.org and covers single-site database + files backups, no cloud storage. Or use whatever your host provides — most managed WordPress hosts (Kinsta, WP Engine, SiteGround, Cloudways, etc.) include daily backups in their plans. GuardPress doesn’t care which backup tool you use; it just no longer competes with them.
Next Steps
- If you have pre-1.6.5 backups you care about, download them now from the GuardPress Backups admin page.
- If you don’t have a current backup solution, install SiteVault Pro (or SiteVault Lite for single-site basics).
- If you’re still on a pre-1.6.5 GuardPress version, update first — the in-plugin backup module is no longer maintained and shouldn’t be trusted with new data.