How to Check That Your Automatic Website Backups Are Actually Running

Setting up a backup schedule is only half the job. Many website owners assume their backups are running because they turned the feature on once, then discover months later that nothing was actually saved. Checking your backup status regularly takes a few minutes and can save you from losing everything.

How to Check Your Backup Status

In cPanel

1. Log in to your control panel and open the Backup or JetBackup icon (the exact name depends on your hosting setup).
2. Look for a backup history or log showing the dates and sizes of recent backups.
3. Check that the most recent backup date matches your expected schedule (daily, weekly, or monthly) and that the file size looks reasonable, not 0 bytes or unusually small.
4. If you see error messages next to a backup entry, note them down before contacting support.

In DirectAdmin

1. Log in to your control panel and open Backup/Restore.
2. Review the list of existing backup files and their creation dates.
3. Confirm the most recent file matches your expected schedule and has a sensible file size for your site.
4. If the list is empty or outdated, your scheduled backup job may have stopped running.

A backup file existing isn't proof it works. Every few months, try restoring a backup (or a single file from one) to a test location to confirm it actually contains usable data, not just an empty or corrupted archive.

What to Do If Backups Aren't Running

• Check your account's disk space usage. If your hosting account is at or near its storage limit, scheduled backups can fail silently because there's no room to write the new backup file.
• Check your email (including spam folder) for backup failure notifications, if your backup tool sends them.
• If you're sending backups to a remote destination such as an FTP server or cloud storage, verify those credentials haven't expired or changed.
• Try running a manual backup immediately. If the manual backup completes successfully but the scheduled one doesn't, the issue is likely with the schedule itself rather than your account.
• If none of the above explains it, contact ZIPROF support with the dates you expected backups to run so the issue can be investigated on the server side.

Making a habit of checking your backup status once a month takes very little time and means you'll never be caught out by a backup that quietly stopped working. See also How to Set Up Automatic Scheduled Backups for Your Website if you haven't configured scheduled backups yet.