Back Up WordPress to Google Drive: Free, to Your Own Cloud

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Back up your entire WordPress site, database and files, straight to your own Google Drive. Every Google account comes with 15 GB of free storage, so your backups live somewhere you already control, not on a backup company’s servers. Here is how it works and how to start for free.

There is nothing to lapse. The plugin is free, in one edition, with no paid tier and no license client in it at all. Backup software that stops backing up because a card expired is the worst possible outcome, and the surest way to avoid it is to never take the card.

Why back up to your own Google Drive?

No second subscription. Your backups go to storage you already have. There is no separate backup service to pay for.

Your data stays yours. The plugin connects to Google Drive through your own Google Cloud project. Your backups, your site files, and your Google credentials are never uploaded to us. The plugin talks to bodholdtlabs.com only about updates. The update check asks bodholdtlabs.com for the current version number, and the request carries your plugin version and your site address in its user agent and nothing else. I count those checks by site, to see how many sites run the plugin. When you install an update, it downloads from bodholdtlabs.com, and I count that download by file, version and time. There is no license key, because there is nothing to buy.

How it works

Bodholdt Backup for Google Drive uses the Google Drive API through your own Google Cloud project. A Google Cloud project is a free space in your own Google account that holds this connection’s settings. Google requires one, with your own credentials, to use the Drive API on your own behalf, and it keeps your Drive access under your control. Enabling the Drive API is one switch inside that project. That is a free setup you only do once, and the plugin walks you through every step. From there it:

• Runs full or incremental backups. Incremental backups only upload the files that changed, so daily backups stay small and fast.
• Uploads in resumable chunks, so large sites do not choke on a single failed request.
• Restore the whole site, or only the parts you choose, from the Your Backups tab. A safety copy of your database is saved first. There is no one-click undo, so treat a restore as a change you cannot easily reverse.
• Restores onto a different server: install WordPress there, connect the plugin to the same Google Drive account, and restore from the list of backups already in your Drive. Two things have to line up first. The new site must be installed with the same database table prefix as the backup, and it must run the same plugin version as the backup or a newer one. Check both before you start.
• Backs up full multisite networks and restores them to the same layout.
• Keeps up to 500 backups. How many is a number you set, not something you buy.
• Emails you a report after every run, whether it succeeded or failed, with a plain-language diagnosis when something goes wrong. It goes to your admin address unless you set another one.

Set it up in about 15 minutes

1. Download the plugin ZIP (no email, no account). In your WordPress dashboard, go to Plugins, click Add New Plugin (Add New in older WordPress), then Upload Plugin, choose the ZIP, click Install Now, then Activate.
2. Follow the guide inside the plugin to create a free Google Cloud project and enable the Drive API. Plan on about 15 minutes, once, and no billing is required. You can read every step before you install in the Google Drive setup guide.
3. Paste your Client ID and Client Secret (the two values Google gives you for this connection), authorize Google access, and pick a schedule.
4. Click Start Backup Now. Your first backup lands in your own Google Drive.

One Google setting that matters

When you set up your Google Cloud project, set the app’s Publishing status to In production. If you leave it in Testing, Google expires the connection about every 7 days and your scheduled backups stop until you reconnect. If that happens anyway, the plugin’s own message names this as the likely cause. The Google Drive setup guide shows the step.

What it costs

Nothing. There is one edition of Bodholdt Backup for Google Drive and it is free and GPL: no license key, no account, no time limit, and no cap on how many sites you install it on. Every backup and restore feature is in it, selective restore included, and updates arrive in your WordPress dashboard with no key to enter.

If you would rather hear about backups in Slack or Discord than by email, or you want a scheduled summary of how a site is doing, that is a separate companion plugin called Bodholdt Backup Pro. It covers both clouds on one license. You do not need it to run backups, and the email report above arrives either way.

See Bodholdt Backup for Google Drive →

Ready to back up to your own Google Drive?

Your backups land in Drive storage you already own and can open yourself, and the plugin that puts them there is free.

Download it here

This is the real build, not a trial that stops working, and it is the only build there is.