Backup2Mail: automatically back up your site's database to email

It's a good idea to back up your website's databases periodically, in case of unforeseen server catastrophes, but it can be hard to remember to do it manually. One automated backup process you might consider is Backup2Mail, which sends backups of your MySQL databases to an email address on a schedule you specify using cron jobs. As long as you can run PHP apps, you're set to go.

A lot of free email accounts - I'm thinking of Gmail, here, specifically - offer enough storage space to keep from filling up too quickly with backups. If you're a privacy-conscious person, you could have Backup2Mail back up to an account on your own server. If you were really ambitious, you could probably set up a simple script or filter for the email account to have it clear out the oldest backups to make room for me.

Tags: backup, database, email, mysql, php