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The 13 Best Apps To Backup Your Shopify Store – [2023]
Last modified: April 1, 2023
Security for your Shopify site should be at the forefront of your thoughts. Today’s modern world is full of dangers for small businesses and internet security is a top priority. Every year about 50% of all small businesses are the victims of a cyberattack. Those that suffer from an attack can suffer from irreparable financial damage that results in the closure of business.
One of the main problems that can happen is that a website is completely taken down. All that data and investment is lost through one criminal act.
In fact, 67% of businesses believe they will be the victim of a cyber attack within 12 months. And of those businesses that are attacked, 31% of them are businesses with less than 250 employees.
However, 58% of businesses don’t have the financial aspects or the functions to backup their store and recover.
You Need To Backup Your Shopify Store Now
To protect you from this, you need to start to look at a process to backup your Shopify Store. When you have a WordPress or standard website, this can mean simply using FTP file access to save your website’s files and then saving the MySQL database. However, you don’t have access to these with Shopify.
And while Shopify states that it backs up everything on its servers, it doesn’t give you access to those files. Therefore, you might as well not have the backup.
Therefore, you need to gain access to apps that will backup your store for you. Otherwise you could lose on significant reputational damage, revenues and having to invest more into rebuilding your brand should you lose your Shopify Store.
So, to prevent you from becoming a victim, here are some apps that will help you.
Rewind Backups
Rewind allows you to backup your Shopify store easily. This allows you to undo any unwanted changes to your website as well as restore it should there be an attack against your small business.
This is the first item on the list because it is one of the biggest suppliers and recommended from so many high-profile Shopify brands like Endy, MVMT Watches and GymShark.
Rewind works very simply, you click on the ‘Add App’ and you can start with a seven-day free trial. Then you can select a plan that will help protect your store. The app itself will backup numerous items, including products, inventory, customers, orders, blogs, pages, themes, etc. And this is done on a daily basis. Therefore, you won’t lose out on much information should the worse happen.
When there is a breach, you can have data restored within minutes. This can be as simple as restoring a single item (i.e. order details) or the whole website. You just select the amount of backup you need to restore.
Rewind Backups Highlights:
- Daily backups of numerous parts of your website.
- Compliant with GDPR legislation.
- Data is stored in an encrypted location and secured.
- Restore missing information within minutes.
Backup
This great app allows you to backup data held on your Shopify store and places it into secure storage. Whenever there is a change to an item, this app will save the new version of the data to backup changes made. Therefore, older versions of your store will always be available and you can restore from exact date and time points.
The app backups a wide range of data for you. The items include Products, Metafields, Orders, Customers, Themes, Pages, Blogs and more. Therefore, there is the potential to backup your site a lot.
Backup Highlights:
- A wide range of items that can have a backup.
- Every time you make changes, a copy of the website is saved.
- Free 7-day trial available.
- Can restore to previous versions of the website very quickly.
Automatic Backups
Never worry about backing up your site again with this app. The app backups everything in your store and saves your products, images, collections, blogs, pages and theme files whenever they change. There is also a complete history of your store you can refer to, and restore, should the need arise.
Restoration can be for the whole store or just a single item. Whichever is needed most. It takes just two or three clicks to find and restore pages.
It takes less than a few minutes in order to restore lots of products. And you can also restore an entire website before installing a new app, especially as some apps can be incompatible with your store and ruin its look/function.
Automatic Backups Highlights:
- History of changes saved automatically, allowing for easy restoration.
- Takes just a few minutes for large restoration needs.
- Advanced browser to find previous versions of items.
- Can be used to test out new apps, just restore the store to before a new app was installed.
ThemeWatch ‑ theme backup tool
This app keeps track of any changes that are taking place on your theme. It also performs daily backups, as well as manual backups, of your theme files. Therefore, should you need to, you can revert back to an old version of your website with just a few clicks.
The theme backups are done on a daily basis, automatically, but when you make changes, it can be useful to manually backup your files.
The app is particularly good because it allows you to track your assets and the differences between different versions. Therefore, if you have a developer, you can see the particular changes they have made to your business’ website.
ThemeWatch Highlights:
- Automatic and manual theme backup app.
- Can see where changes have been made.
- Easy recovery to a previous backup point.
- Low-cost app that also helps to keep costs down.
Plug in Backup
Don’t worry about manually backing up your website with this app. Your theme will be backed up every hour, so any changes you’ve made can be reversed with ease. Therefore, when changes don’t go your way, you can be rest assured that they can be undone and you can get back to optimising your website for higher conversions.
The app can keep track of all the changes that have been made. So you can assess which changes might have caused problems – a great way to troubleshoot your website and make decisions about what changes are kept and which aren’t.
If you’re concerned about a specific app or change and want to ensure that you go to a specific point, you can create a manual backup point. This is a great option and you can still recover to this point with ease. The app developers even recommend creating a backup before and after installing apps.
To revert to a previous version of your website, all you need to do is look down the timeline and select the backup point you want to recover to.
Plug In Backup Highlights:
- A timeline to show you at what point you backed up your site and what changes were made.
- Automatic and manual backup functionality.
- Low cost.
- Can backup numerous items.
ExIm ‑ Export / Import data
While not technically a backup app for Shopify, it does have functionality that allows you to backup content on your website. There is a lot of manual work here and if you aren’t sure what you’re doing, this app probably isn’t for you. However, if you have some technical skills, this could be a cost effective way to backup a significant proportion of your website.
With this app, you can export and important several aspects including pages, blogs and theme settings. There is no configuration needed, all you need to do is install the app.
It is easy to use and quick to import and export. This is also a great app for developers who are looking for a cost-effective way to quickly create websites for clients using Shopify. Or if you’re an international brand looking to clone your website for different territories.
ExIm Highlights:
A free app that makes backups cost-effective.
Manual, no automatic updates available.
Can be used for several different purposes.
Need more technical skills than other backup apps.
Excelify
Again, this is not a backup app as such, but it does do a similar function and therefore is worth a mention on this list. This app allows you to export data from your website for you to store on your own systems. What is good about this app, compared to those previously mentioned, is that there is some automation available, therefore, you can automatically backup your website with ease.
What this app also allows you to do is to use it as a migration tool. Whether you’re looking to import websites from WordPress, or another CMS program, or import product information from suppliers, this app is a great solution.
With this function, you can bulk update fields, so they more closely match what you need on your store. This app offers you a lot of control. For instance, if you only want to backup certain areas of your store, you just need to tweak your filters to target the data you’re wanting to save. Recovery of data is just as simple.
Excelify Highlights:
- Clone an existing store so you don’t have to start from scratch with a new store.
- Backup your website regularly and automatically.
- Free option available.
- Integrates with a wide variety of third-party apps to make work flows easier.
Xporter Data Export Tool
Xporter is another on our list that isn’t really designed for backing up your website, but could do the job if other backup apps aren’t for you. It does come highly recommended, however, for exporting data from your website. What it does is that it takes your store’s data and converts it into a readable spreadsheet or XML file.
This data could be anything from orders, customers, products, blogs, sales and full transactional information. There is a lot of other data that can be saved as well. This makes it a very versatile option. However, it isn’t perfect but if you’re not in love with your theme or website design and would be willing to re-design it if something goes wrong, then this might be the app for you.
Any export that you do can be sent via email, FTP and SFTP to any server. This is in your control, so there are many ways to share data and backup your store.
Xporter Data Export Tool Highlights:
- Export data to a number of different safe locations.
- Backup a wide range of data from your store to ensure the continuation of your business.
- Easy to use and cost effective.
- Highly recommended by many Shopify store owners.
EZ Exporter ‑ Data Exports
As far as exporters go, this is rather expensive. However, it is also one of the top recommended exporter apps that can be used as a backup solution. You can export data from your Shopify store in many formats; including: CSV, TSV, TXT, XLS or XLSX. You can also customize what data is being exported and the form of it. Therefore, you can choose to save as much or as little of the data you want.
The backup functions can be manually done, or you can have them automatically exported and delivered through an automated email to a chosen address. Alternatively, backup files can be stored in FTP, SFTP, Dropbox, Google Drive or Amazon S3. Automation can be done every 15 minutes, 60 minutes, seven days or even monthly.
Exports don’t even need to be all at the same time. You can choose to backup customer data one day and order data the next. The choice of how the backups are done it completely up to you.
EZ Exporter Highlights:
- Automatically backup your data and send it to the storage location of your choice.
- Lots of different file formats to choose from.
- Can choose a wide range of backup options, frequency and templates.
- Higher cost than other exporting apps that can be used for backing.
Theme Backup
This app automatically backs up your theme every hour and you can also see past changes to the theme. You can also avoid any problems by making a manual backup when changing aspects of your website. This can be useful when installing an app or your developer makes changes to your website. The last thing you want for your store is to be waiting for a broken website to be fixed! WIth this app you can just go back to a previous saved version of your theme.
If you do come across any problems and you need to revert to a previous backup of your theme then you can restore your theme with a previous version by scrolling down the timeline of past theme backups.
Theme Backup Highlights
- Hourly theme backup.
- Manual backup action.
- Analyze a broken theme.
- Go back to a previous save.
Export Import Data
This app offers you the ability to bulk import and export your store data so you can back up your theme and reset the data if needed.
You can export and import pages, blogs and articles from your Shopify store. With Export Import Data app you can copy your store to another store and they are both included in the same price.
Export Import Data Highlights
- Export and import bulk data from your store.
- Restore previous pages from your website.
- Simple to install and use.
- Uses JSON, CSV and ZIP format of files for the import and export.
Theme Save - Inactive
If you’re not using your Shopify site as an eCommerce store, then you might not have many items to backup. Therefore, you might want to have a less expensive backup app that allows you to protect your content without excessive expense. That is where Theme Save can help.
Instead of backing up an entire website, Theme Save allows you to have a backup of how your website looks via the theme files. This is done automatically, every day. The backup is saved for you to go back to for 100 days. This is a considerable length of time and a good addition to the app.
However, if you do have products/blog posts/pages, these aren’t protected and you could lose them should the worse happen.
Theme Save Highlights:
- Saves your theme files automatically for 100 days.
- No need to manually do anything.
- Low-cost backup system.
- Great for those with no, or limited, collections.
Data Backups & Recovery - Inactive
Otherwise known as Warely, this app is perfect for protecting your business’ website from unforeseen disasters. It gives you great protection from your website being disabled either through a malicious act or because of an error in your, or a third-party, code writing. The app simply provides you with a synched copy of your Shopify store. Therefore, if you ever need it, you can recover your website very quickly.
This app allows you to choose what data is backed up. And the pricing for this app is unique. Instead of being a flat rate or based on your income; the price is dependent on the amount of storage you need. Therefore, if you have one product and a few pages but make a significant number of sales, the cost is much lower than it would be with other solutions.
The app allows you to backup a wide range of content for your peace of mind. For instance, you can backup image, meta data and themes. This can include code, style or liquid files.
Data Backups & Recovery Highlights:
- Developed by Shopify merchants who have experienced the backup issue with Shopify.
- Charged based on usage not on sales.
- Can revert back to old SEO settings if you notice a change has lost you rank/traffic.
- Developer friendly app.
Final Word: Apps To Backup Your Shopify Store
Many brands go out of business because they suffer from a website failure. This could be because of a hack or it could be because of an error on a website. If there is no backup of the website, then this can be very upsetting. Learn to protect your business and backup Your Shopify store. Which of the above apps will you use?
Have a look at my Shopify App that does automated backups, uptime monitoring and security blocks. It’s called Wrench.
As a merchant a backup of your store is crucial in case of an emergency. Although Shopify do in fact backup your store but there’s a problem with Shopifys backups – those backups are for them to use, not you as a merchant.
There are multiple reasons for needing a proper backup of your entire store, I’ll list a few below.
Human Error
You yourself or one of your staff could accidentally delete a product, mess up a custom collection or even deleting the entire store (that actually happens).
Third party apps
There’s a lot of great apps on the App Store, but unfortunately there’s also a lot of apps leaving code behind in your theme or accidentally removes items from your store.
Malicious data deletion
A hacker could get control of your store and either delete it or keep it hostage.
These are just a few examples of what could happen to your store data. In order to protect your business a fresh backup of all data is crucial – but it can be cumbersome.
The manual way
You’ll need to access multiple API endpoints and sort through images and meta data to create a backup, and then you need to do it again the next day, and the next…
The automated way
With Wrench we’ve built a 100% automated backup solution that you as a merchant can set and forget. If something bad were to happen to your store, use Wrench to restore all items – or specific ones – and keep focusing on running your store.
We’ve also built in an Uptime Monitor tool that will let you or your staff know if your store would break, you’ll get an instant email that something is wrong and together with your fresh backups it’s as easy as click a button to restore your store keep those sales coming.
We aim to be the perfect solution for any merchant taking their store seriously and want peace of mind knowing that everything runs smoothly – all the time.
If you have any questions or feedback – let me know!