Back Up WordPress to OneDrive: Free, to Your Own Cloud

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Back up your entire WordPress site, database and files, straight to your own Microsoft OneDrive. You already have OneDrive (every Microsoft account comes with 5 GB free), so your backups live in storage you already control, not on someone else’s servers. Here’s how it works and how to get started 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 OneDrive?

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

Your data stays yours. The plugin connects to OneDrive through your own Microsoft app registration. Your backups, your site files, and your Microsoft 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 OneDrive uses the Microsoft Graph API through your own Azure app registration. That’s 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 don’t 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 OneDrive account, and restore from the list of backups already in your OneDrive. 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, and it also warns you before your Azure client secret expires, once you paste the expiry date Azure shows you into Settings.

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 Azure app registration. Plan on about 15 minutes, once. Backups can go to a personal OneDrive or a work or school one, and no paid subscription is needed. You can read every step before you install in the OneDrive setup guide.
3. Paste your Client ID and Secret, authorize OneDrive access, and pick a schedule.
4. Click Start Backup Now. Your first backup lands in your own OneDrive.

Your Azure client secret has an expiry date

When you create the client secret, Microsoft makes you pick an expiry, and the longest it allows is 24 months. When it passes, backups stop until you paste a new secret. Paste the expiry date Azure shows you into the plugin’s Settings, and the free plugin emails you a warning before that day. The OneDrive setup guide shows how to create a new secret.

What it costs

Nothing. There is one edition of Bodholdt Backup for OneDrive 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 OneDrive →

Ready to back up to your own OneDrive?

Your backups land in OneDrive 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.