Backing up your Sitecore setup

When you think of backing up a Sitecore instance, you’re typically looking at backing up your content (posts and pages), user profiles, and media files. You can also be looking to back up your analytics and user engagement data, metadata, and other configurations (those with third-party solutions).

So first up, backing up a Sitecore instance is no straightforward job.

And that’s because different Sitecore solutions approach backups differently. 

Let’s zoom in how backups can work with Sitecore XM Cloud—Sitecore’s latest headless CMS solution—to understand this.

With a typical Sitecore XM Cloud, you can’t take a complete backup on your end. 

Why? 

Because Sitecore XM Cloud is a managed service with Sitecore handling the entire instance. With Sitecore XM Cloud:

• If you want to back up customer profiles or user data through database or file system backups, you’ll need to reach out to the Sitecore support team for assistance.
• To back up content assets, you can use various methods under Sitecore content serialization (an umbrella term for Sitecore export tools and solutions).
• For backing up media items, you’d typically use a Sitecore PowerShell script.

And so on.

Depending on your existing Sitecore setup, see how you can back up your different Sitecore elements from content and user data to media files.

Here’s a table to guide you with backing up your Sitecore setup:

Items to backup	Description	Typical contents	Backup method	Sitecore team involvement
Content items	Backing up all the content published on the Sitecore site.	Pages, blog posts, articles, product descriptions	Sitecore serialization (among other methods)	May or may not be needed (depending on the backup method)
Media assets	Backing up images, videos, and other media files.	Images, videos, PDFs, audio files	Media Library export (among other methods)	May or may not be needed (depending on the backup method)
SEO metadata	Backing up SEO-related information like titles, descriptions, and keywords.	Page titles, meta descriptions, alt tags	Sitecore Powershell script (among other methods)	May or may not be needed (depending on the backup method)
User data	Backing up user accounts and profiles.	User profiles, roles, permissions	Limited transfer possible with APIs	Will be generally needed
Any other content/data you may be dealing with		–	–	–

Also:

After you take a backup, test it, and upload it to a secure storage… just in case.