UpdraftPlus Backup Location: Find Your Backup Files

A backup finishes, the log says "The backup succeeded and is now complete", and then you open your FTP client and cannot find it. This is one of the most common questions about UpdraftPlus. This guide shows you how to find your UpdraftPlus backup location, how to download the files, and how to make sure a backup is still there on the day you need it.

The short answer first. Unless someone changed the setting, UpdraftPlus saves backups in the wp-content/updraft folder on the same server as your website. If no remote storage is set up, that is the only copy.

1. Start with the Existing backups list

Before you open FTP, look inside WordPress. Go to UpdraftPlus Backups, open the Backup / Restore tab, and scroll to Existing backups.

Every backup set the plugin knows about is listed here, with its date and a button for each part: Database, Plugins, Themes, Uploads, Must-use plugins and Others. Above the list you will also see a line like "Web-server disk space in use by UpdraftPlus", followed by a size.

This list is the source of truth. If a backup shows here, it exists on the server, even when you cannot see it anywhere else.

2. Read the backup log for clues

Each row has a View Log button. The log tells you more than you might expect. Look for these lines:

• The backup directory line. Near the top, the log names the full folder path and says whether it is writable. This is the exact location of your files.
• "No remote despatch: user chose no remote backup service". This means the files were never sent to Google Drive, Dropbox or any other cloud storage. They live only on the web server.
• "Retain" lines. These show how many backup sets the plugin keeps and which old ones it just deleted.
• "No email will/can be sent". No one gets a report when a backup fails.

If you only read one thing, read the backup directory line. It ends the guessing.

3. Check the default UpdraftPlus backup location

By default, backups go to wp-content/updraft. On most shared hosting that means a path like public_html/wp-content/updraft.

Inside, each backup set is a group of files that share a date and a short code, for example:

• backup_<date>_<site-name>_<code>-db.gz for the database
• ...-plugins.zip, ...-themes.zip, ...-mu-plugins.zip and ...-others.zip
• ...-uploads.zip, often split into uploads2.zip, uploads3.zip and so on for big media libraries
• log.<code>.txt, the log for that set

If the folder name was changed, you can find the new one under Settings > Expert settings > Backup directory. The official UpdraftPlus plugin page also points to wp-content/updraft as the place to look for log files.

4. FTP shows old files? Check you are on the right server

Here is a situation that confuses many site owners. You open wp-content/updraft over FTP and find backups, but they are months old. The new ones are missing.

Work through these checks:

1. Refresh the file list. FTP clients can show a cached listing. Press F5 first.
2. Compare the folder path. Match the path from the log in step 2 with the path in your FTP client.
3. Compare the numbers. If WordPress says UpdraftPlus uses 3.6 GB, but the files you see in FTP plus that total would be double, you are looking at a different folder.
4. Check the old files against the retention setting. If the plugin keeps two backup sets, it deletes anything older. Old sets that are still sitting there are not being managed by this install.
5. Check which server the domain points to. Run nslookup yourdomain.com and compare the result with your FTP host. If the site was moved to new hosting, your saved FTP login may still open the old server.

Folders like plugins-old or themes-old are another hint that the site was moved at some point. If the paths match but the files do not, you are almost always connected to a different server.

5. Download your backup to your computer

The easiest way to get the files is from WordPress itself:

1. In Existing backups, click each button on the row you need: Database, Plugins, Themes, Uploads, Must-use plugins and Others.
2. UpdraftPlus prepares the file, then shows a Download to your computer link. Click it.
3. If Uploads is split into several parts, download every part.

You can also download the files over FTP or your hosting file manager once you know the real folder. Keep all files from the same set together. You need every part to restore the whole site.

The UpdraftPlus backup guide covers how to upload these files again later if you ever need to restore from your computer.

6. Fix the setup so a backup is there when you need it

Finding the files is half the job. The bigger lesson is what the search shows about your setup.

• Add remote storage. A backup on the same server as the site is not a real backup. If the server fails or the hosting account is hacked, the backups go with it. The free plugin can send files to Google Drive, Dropbox, Amazon S3, FTP and more. See the UpdraftPlus cloud storage docs for setup steps.
• Check your retention number. If it is set to 2, you only ever have two restore points. A problem that goes unnoticed for a few weeks can outlive both. Before big changes, download a copy and keep it safe.
• Turn on email reports. Add an address in the settings so you hear when a backup fails, not only when it works.
• Clean up forgotten backups. Old backup files on an old server or in a public web folder still hold full copies of your database. Download them or delete them once you know where they are.

If you want to go further, you can run scheduled backups and off-site copies with an automation tool. This guide on automating website backups with n8n shows one way to do it, and these WordPress security basics with Cloudflare explain why tested backups belong in every security plan.

Quick recap

• Check Existing backups in WordPress first.
• Read the log to get the exact backup folder path.
• The default UpdraftPlus backup location is wp-content/updraft.
• If FTP shows old files, you are probably on another server or folder.
• Download every part of the set from WordPress.
• Add remote storage, check retention and turn on email reports.

Backups only matter on the day you need one, and that is the worst day to find out they are missing. If you would rather not manage this yourself, my WordPress maintenance service includes off-site backups and regular checks. You can also get in touch and tell me about your site.