Description

Vanguard Smart Backups uses an advanced incremental engine. Instead of creating a full ZIP every time (which kills server resources), it identifies only the files that changed and syncs them to your cloud.

Features

Smart Engine: Automatically detects changes and schedules backups.
Massive Scalability: New streaming engine handles multi-GB databases and files with minimal RAM.
Incremental Backups: Saves storage and bandwidth by only uploading what’s new.
One-Click Restore: Specialized recovery wizard that handles large databases and files in chunks.
Security First: Fully compliant with WordPress.org security standards and SQL injection protection.
Retention Policy: Automatically manage your Google Drive storage by quantity or time.

External services

This plugin relies on the Google Drive API to store and retrieve your website backups.

Service: Google Drive (provided by Google LLC).
Usage: The plugin connects to Google Drive to upload backup chunks, list existing backups for restoration, and download backup files during the recovery process.
Data sent: The plugin sends backup data (site files and database exports) to your own Google Drive account. It also sends metadata such as backup time, size, and PHP version for identification. No data is sent to any third-party servers other than Google’s official API endpoints.
Terms of Service: Google Terms of Service
Privacy Policy: Google Privacy Policy

Installation

Upload the vanguard-smart-incremental-backups-google-drive folder to the /wp-content/plugins/ directory.
Activate the plugin through the ‘Plugins’ menu in WordPress.
Navigate to Vanguard Backups > Settings.
Follow the built-in guide to create your Google Cloud credentials.
Click “Connect Google Drive” and you are ready.

FAQ

How do I get my Google Drive Client ID and Secret?

Go to the Google Cloud Console.
Create a new project for your backups.
Navigate to APIs & Services > Library and enable the Google Drive API.
Set up the OAuth Consent Screen (choose “External” and provide basic info).
Go to Credentials > Create Credentials > OAuth Client ID.
Select Web Application.
Add your site’s Authorized Redirect URI (found in the plugin’s Settings tab).
Copy the generated Client ID and Client Secret into the plugin settings.

How does the plugin work?

The plugin uses a smart event listener that monitors changes in your WordPress site (like saving a post or updating a setting). When a change occurs, it identifies the modified files using a high-performance hash-based incremental engine. Instead of backing up everything, it only uploads the changes to Google Drive, making it incredibly fast and light on server resources.

What configurations are available?

Backup Frequency: Smart Sync (every 5 mins if changes detected), Hourly, or Daily.
Retention Policy: Keep a specific number of backups or keep them for a certain number of days.
Backup Cycles: Force a “Full Baseline” monthly or quarterly to maintain a fresh point of origin.
Selective Restore: Option to skip WordPress core files during restoration.

Does it support WordPress Multisite?

Currently, the plugin works on a per-site basis. Each site in the network can have its own independent backup configuration and Google Drive folder. Network-wide global backups are not yet implemented.

Can I use this plugin to migrate my site to a new domain?

No. Vanguard Smart Incremental Backups is strictly designed for disaster recovery and backups of your current website. It does not perform URL Search and Replace for database migrations. If you restore a backup on a different domain, your site will break.

Reviews

There are no reviews for this plugin.

Contributors & Developers

“Vanguard Smart Incremental Backups for Google Drive” is open source software. The following people have contributed to this plugin.

Luis

Translate “Vanguard Smart Incremental Backups for Google Drive” into your language.

Interested in development?

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

Changelog

1.9.13

Fix: Add missing admin notices for OAuth connection errors.
Fix: Prevent backup progress freezing when Google Drive token is expired or missing.
Tweak: Increase background HTTP loopback timeout to prevent connection drops on Cloudflare + LiteSpeed environments.

1.9.12

Fix: Resolved a state machine mismatch in the multi-step AJAX restoration pipeline where the renamed database file was not correctly located during extraction, causing a silent skip of the database restoration.
Security: Removed residual development functions and hardened query interpolations to strictly pass Plugin Check static analysis.

1.9.11

Security & Reliability: Fixed a critical data-loss vulnerability during chunked restoration where MySQL transactions could be unexpectedly rolled back if the PHP execution time limit was reached, preventing complete database restoration on strict environments like LiteSpeed/ServerAvatar.

1.9.10

Security: Removed obsolete, unused search and replace code block in the restoration engine.
UI: Updated tooltip text to clarify disaster recovery use-case instead of migrations.
Documentation: Added FAQ clarifying that the free version does not support domain migrations.

1.9.9

Improved security: isolated temporary database backup files strictly to the dedicated uploads directory.

1.9.8

Added i18n support to Javascript variables in the restoration modal.
Removed redundant usages of WP_CONTENT_DIR.
Removed unused instances of the readfile() function for external URLs.
Unified plugin reactivation to use WordPress native activate_plugin() function.

1.9.7

Implemented WordPress Plugin Review Team recommendations.
Migrated from raw option modification to activate_plugin() for reactivation during restore.
Improved security: removed fallback paths and fallback remote streams.
Cleaned up redundant logic and undefined variables.

1.9.6

Final code cleanup and removal of all debugging artifacts.
Fully resolved strict Plugin Check static analysis warnings.

1.9.5

Branding: Renamed to “Vanguard Smart Incremental Backups for Google Drive” for brand consistency.
Security: Improved escaping of system variables (PHP_VERSION) in admin templates.
Documentation: Added “External services” section to readme.txt.
Added chunked GDrive download (HTTP Range) for massive backup files.
Added iterative ZIP extraction (batches) to prevent server timeouts during restore.

1.8.4

Improved database restoration engine with real-time progress reporting.
Added dynamic file and folder exclusions (Common cache folders and custom paths).
Fixed AJAX restoration state machine to handle intermittent connection drops.
Enhanced backup metadata with source site URL for security validation.

1.8.3

Optimization: Reduced SQL batch time to 12s for better compatibility with low-end servers.
Feature: Added raw server response debug window in the restoration wizard.
Fix: Improved memory management during database injection.

1.8.2

Hotfix: Fixed critical PHP syntax error in admin-dashboard.php.
Fix: Restored correct conditional logic for restoration resume alerts.

1.8.1

Fix: Corrected ‘resume-db-restore’ path handling to avoid absolute path duplication.
Fix: Improved Dashboard detection for pending restorations.

1.8.0

Major Re-engineering: Implemented Bulk Extraction for much faster and more stable restorations, avoiding server timeouts (HTTP 400).
Fix: Standardized SQL detection during restoration across different backup structures.
Optimization: Hardened file-writing permissions and directory handling.

1.0.0

Initial release.
Smart incremental engine.
One-click restore with core exclusion.
Retention policy and auto-cleanup.