Description

PWS Backup & Migration by Professional Web Solutions lets you export, import, store, and restore complete WordPress sites using the proprietary .pws archive format.

Professional migration and WordPress services are available from the plugin author.

Features

One-click full site export to .pws
Chunked upload for unlimited import size
Local backups management (download, restore, delete)
Pre-restore validation (archive, disk, PHP, WP, MySQL)
URL search & replace during migration
SHA-256 checksums for archive integrity
Smart exclusions (cache, logs, dev folders)

Privacy

Telemetry: NONE
External services: NONE
Remote API calls: NONE (except loopback AJAX for pipeline continuation)

All backup operations run locally on your server. No data is sent to third parties.

Developer Notes

Filter pwsbami_archive_chunk_size to adjust archiver read/write chunk size (default 524288 bytes).
Filter pwsbami_export_exclude_path to exclude additional paths from export.

Screenshots

Installation

Upload the plugin to /wp-content/plugins/pws-backup-migration/
Activate through the ‘Plugins’ menu in WordPress
Go to PWS Backup in the admin menu

FAQ

What is a .pws file?: A .pws file is the native archive format used by PWS Backup & Migration. It contains your database, uploads, plugins, themes, and migration metadata.
Does this plugin send data externally?: No. Telemetry is NONE, external services are NONE, and remote API calls are NONE.
Can I migrate large sites?: Yes. The plugin uses chunked uploads and a multi-step AJAX pipeline to handle sites of any size.

Reviews

There are no reviews for this plugin.

Contributors & Developers

“PWS Backup & Migration” is open source software. The following people have contributed to this plugin.

Syed Mukhyyar Hussain Rizvi

Translate “PWS Backup & Migration” into your language.

Interested in development?

Browse the code, check out the SVN repository, or subscribe to the development log by RSS.

Changelog

1.0.10

Auto-remove duplicate plugin folders on activation (fixes multiple “PWS Backup & Migration” rows after zip upload)
Admin notice with one-click cleanup when duplicate installs are detected

1.0.9

Faster file packing: single-pass SHA-256 while writing (no double disk read)
Stream file list from disk with byte-offset resume (no 39k-path memory load per request)
Smaller packing steps (150 files / 12s) for strict shared-hosting timeouts
Export retries use exponential backoff (up to 20 attempts); refresh page to resume after failure

1.0.8

Fix large-site export timeouts: chunked resumable file scanning with per-step time budget
Export pipeline retries transient AJAX failures (up to 10 attempts) and auto-resumes after page refresh
Safer default step sizes for shared hosting (500 files / 20s per request)

1.0.7

Move local backup storage to uploads/pws-backup-migration/backups/ (migrate legacy wp-content/pws-backups/ on activation)
Replace direct ABSPATH/WP_CONTENT_DIR usage with WordPress path helpers (get_home_path, get_theme_root, wp_upload_dir, plugin_dir_path)
Harden import extract with archive path allowlisting and traversal checks

1.0.6

Prefix template and uninstall variables for Plugin Check / PHPCS compliance

1.0.5

WordPress.org review: remove production ini_set(‘display_errors’) from import handler
Rename all code prefixes from pws/PWS_ to pwsbami/PWSBAMI_ for namespace uniqueness
Migrate legacy pws_* option keys on plugin activation

1.0.4

Store runtime work files in the uploads directory instead of the plugin folder
Resolve archive paths via WP_CONTENT_DIR for custom content directory layouts
Portable 64-bit archive size encoding; legacy storage migration on activation

1.0.3

Faster export: time-budget batching for file packing and database export
Improved restore/import UI with loading, progress, and success states
Smarter export exclusions (installer zips, backup temp folders, archive files)
Export complete message shows files vs database size breakdown
WordPress.org Plugin Check compliance (no hidden files in plugin package)
Import pipeline reliability fixes; removed unstable restore-point option from UI

1.0.2

Add contextual author services sidebar on Export, Import, and Backups admin pages (WordPress.org compliant)

1.0.1

Export database schema (CREATE TABLE) before row data for reliable restore after drop
Client-driven import pipeline (no server loopback) for shared hosting and localhost
Removed development debug instrumentation
Improved export resume, exclusions, and large-site packing reliability

1.0.0

Initial release