ryanshoover

<p><a href="https://circleci.com/gh/ryanshoover/safe-staging/tree/master" rel="nofollow ugc"></a></p>
<p>Simply define your production url in settings and copy your site to your staging instance without fear. The staging site won’t send any emails and won’t process any payments.</p>
<h4>Why should I use the plugin</h4>
<p>If you host your site on a managed host that provides a staging instance (WP Engine, Siteground, and others), or if you run a staging instance for a self-hosted website, you may have found that WordPress and WooCommerce will automatically send emails and process payments from the staging site. Whenever you clone your production site to your staging site, you would normally need to complete a number of steps to make your site “safe for staging.”</p>
<p>Instead, install this plugin in production, set the production URL, and safely copy your site to and from staging. No other steps needed!</p>
<h4>Features on Staging</h4>
<ol>
<li>A “noindex” tag is added to all pages. Your staging site won’t show up in Google.</li>
<li>WordPress emails are stopped. The site won’t send any emails except for the password reset email. Please note, this feature may not be compatible with plugins that offload email to a 3rd party service.</li>
<li>The WooCommerce checkout page has a warning message notifying the visitor they are viewing the staging site.</li>
<li>WooCommerce payment gateways are suspended. Bank account transfer, Cash on Delivery and Check are left enabled. Stripe is automatically put into test mode.</li>
<li>WooCommerce Subscriptions is put into staging mode.</li>
</ol>


Safe Staging

My client did something that suddenly started sending emails from the staging server for their membership site. This plugin allowed me to kill the emails from sending and backtrack the issues caused before it got out of hand. 

This saved my client

Safely copy your WordPress, WooCommerce, and membership site between production and staging.

Esteban

<p>StifLi Backup Tools is a professional WordPress backup plugin for creating full site backups, database backups, file backups, scheduled backups, staging sites, Fast Staging builds for developers, Local Developer Packages, and migration packages directly from your WordPress dashboard.</p>
<p>The plugin is designed for everyday WordPress site owners, freelancers, agencies, and administrators who need a practical backup and restore workflow without depending on complex server tools. It uses background processing, resumable jobs, chunked ZIP creation, streaming database exports, and HTTP range downloads to help backups and restores complete even on shared hosting, slower servers, or environments where long requests may be interrupted.</p>
<p>For agencies and development teams, StifLi Backup Tools also includes differentiated workflows for building lean staging environments and exporting Local Developer Packages, reducing the time spent cloning oversized production sites just to test changes, debug issues, or hand work over for local development.</p>
<p>Use StifLi Backup Tools to back up WordPress before updates, keep scheduled backup copies, migrate a site to a new domain, create a staging copy, restore selected components, or send backup archives to remote storage such as Google Drive, Dropbox, Amazon S3-compatible storage (including Cloudflare R2), FTP, or SFTP.</p>
<p>Official documentation: <a href="https://andromedanova.com/stifli-backup-tools.html" rel="nofollow ugc">StifLi Backup Tools Documentation</a>.</p>
<h4>WordPress backup features</h4>
<ul>
<li>Full WordPress backups including database, plugins, themes, uploads, and selected site files.</li>
<li>Database-only backups for quick snapshots before plugin, theme, or content changes.</li>
<li>Files-only backup options for plugins, themes, and uploads.</li>
<li>Differential scheduled backups to save only changed files between full backups.</li>
<li>Backup integrity checks before restore.</li>
<li>Backup explorer for reviewing backup contents.</li>
<li>Component restore for database, plugins, themes, or uploads.</li>
<li>Selective restore for specific files or directories.</li>
<li>Backup upload and local backup rescan tools.</li>
<li>HTTP range downloads for large backup archives and interrupted downloads.</li>
</ul>
<h4>Scheduled backups</h4>
<p>Create automatic WordPress backups on a schedule and control how many copies are kept locally and remotely.</p>
<ul>
<li>Daily, weekly, fortnightly, monthly, and custom scheduled backup workflows.</li>
<li>Choose backup components: database, plugins, themes, uploads, or full site.</li>
<li>Choose local storage, remote storage, or remote-only backups.</li>
<li>Full or differential backup strategy.</li>
<li>Separate retention rules for local backups, remote backups, and differential backups.</li>
<li>Email notifications for backup results.</li>
<li>Optional webhook notifications for external monitoring or automation.</li>
</ul>
<h4>Remote backup storage</h4>
<p>StifLi Backup Tools can send backup archives to remote destinations only after you explicitly configure and enable them.</p>
<p>Supported destinations include:</p>
<ul>
<li>Google Drive</li>
<li>Dropbox</li>
<li>Amazon S3</li>
<li>S3-compatible storage such as Backblaze B2, Wasabi, MinIO, DigitalOcean Spaces, and Cloudflare R2</li>
<li>FTP</li>
<li>SFTP</li>
</ul>
<p>Remote storage is optional. The plugin does not contact external storage services unless you enable and configure the corresponding destination.</p>
<h4>WordPress restore and recovery</h4>
<p>Restore your WordPress site from a backup with a guided process and live progress updates.</p>
<ul>
<li>Restore database and files.</li>
<li>Restore only selected components.</li>
<li>Restore uploaded backup ZIP files.</li>
<li>Restore local or remote backup archives.</li>
<li>Merge differential backups with their parent full backup when required.</li>
<li>Streaming restore progress designed to avoid browser and hosting timeouts.</li>
<li>Semaphore locking to help prevent overlapping backup and restore operations.</li>
</ul>
<h4>WordPress migration tools</h4>
<p>Move a WordPress site to another server or domain using migration packages and URL remapping.</p>
<ul>
<li>Create migration packages from the WordPress dashboard.</li>
<li>Import migration packages on the destination site.</li>
<li>Remap URLs when moving to a new domain.</li>
<li>Optional site-to-site Push/Pull migration using a shared secret between two WordPress sites you control.</li>
<li>Standalone installer for migration scenarios where WordPress is not yet installed on the destination server.</li>
</ul>
<h4>Staging sites</h4>
<p>Create a staging copy of your WordPress site for safe testing before making changes on production.</p>
<ul>
<li>Create full staging sites or lean Fast Staging builds in a subdirectory.</li>
<li>Copy files and database tables into the staging environment.</li>
<li>Exclude selected tables, plugins, themes, uploads, and WooCommerce-heavy data for developer-focused staging builds.</li>
<li>Search and replace URLs for the staging copy.</li>
<li>Track staging job progress.</li>
<li>Delete staging sites from the plugin interface.</li>
</ul>
<h4>Developer workflows</h4>
<p>StifLi Backup Tools includes dedicated workflows for developers, freelancers, and agencies who need faster QA environments and cleaner local handoff packages.</p>
<ul>
<li>Fast Staging for developers creates lean staging builds by letting you limit the copy to the tables, plugins, themes, uploads, and data scope you actually need.</li>
<li>Local Developer Package export prepares a LocalWP-friendly package for local development workflows so a selected site snapshot is easier to move, inspect, and hand off.</li>
<li>Background processing, live progress updates, cancel support, and resumable job handling help these workflows stay practical on large sites and typical WordPress hosting.</li>
<li>Useful for client review environments, bug reproduction, plugin or theme QA, and pre-release testing without cloning the full production site every time.</li>
</ul>
<h4>Maintenance and optimization tools</h4>
<p>StifLi Backup Tools also includes practical maintenance utilities for WordPress administrators.</p>
<ul>
<li>Image optimization using the WordPress image editor when available.</li>
<li>Database cleanup for revisions, spam comments, trash comments, transients, and overhead.</li>
<li>Temporary file cleanup for backup, restore, staging, and upload leftovers.</li>
<li>Custom exclude rules for uploads and wp-content backup paths.</li>
<li>System information and log viewer for troubleshooting backup issues.</li>
</ul>
<h4>Built for shared hosting</h4>
<p>Many WordPress sites run on shared hosting or constrained VPS environments. StifLi Backup Tools is built with those limitations in mind.</p>
<ul>
<li>Background processing via WP-Cron.</li>
<li>Resumable backup and restore stages.</li>
<li>Chunked ZIP creation.</li>
<li>Streaming database export and import.</li>
<li>Memory-aware file operations.</li>
<li>Locking to avoid concurrent destructive operations.</li>
<li>Compatibility options for different archive engines and compression profiles.</li>
</ul>
<h4>AI agents and MCP abilities</h4>
<p>StifLi Backup Tools can expose selected WordPress Abilities to MCP-compatible AI agents for professional and commercial automation workflows.</p>
<ul>
<li>Uses the WordPress Abilities API (WordPress 6.9+).</li>
<li>Lets administrators enable or disable abilities globally and per ability.</li>
<li>Exposes a safe default set for backup and remote-management operations.</li>
<li>Keeps restore and scheduled-execution operations outside MCP ability exposure by design.</li>
</ul>
<h3>External services</h3>
<p>This plugin can connect to third-party services only when you explicitly enable and configure the corresponding feature. No telemetry, analytics, license check, or automatic external update call is made by the plugin.</p>
<p>The full list of services that may be contacted, the data that is sent, and when, is described below.</p>
<h4>Google Drive (optional, opt-in)</h4>
<p>If you connect a Google account to use Google Drive as a remote backup destination, the plugin contacts Google’s OAuth and Drive APIs.</p>
<ul>
<li>Endpoints used:
<ul>
<li><code>https://oauth2.googleapis.com/token</code> — to exchange and refresh OAuth tokens.</li>
<li><code>https://www.googleapis.com/drive/v3/*</code> — to list, create, update, download, and delete backup files in your Drive.</li>
<li><code>https://www.googleapis.com/upload/drive/v3/files</code> — to upload backup archives in resumable chunks.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>What is sent: your OAuth client ID and secret provided by you, the refresh/access token, backup ZIP files you choose to upload, and metadata such as filename, size, and parent folder ID.</li>
<li>When: only when you start OAuth connection from the settings page, run a backup that has Google Drive selected as a destination, or browse, restore, or delete remote backups stored in your Drive.</li>
<li>Provider terms: <a href="https://policies.google.com/terms" rel="nofollow ugc">Google Terms of Service</a> and <a href="https://policies.google.com/privacy" rel="nofollow ugc">Google Privacy Policy</a>.</li>
</ul>
<h4>Dropbox (optional, opt-in)</h4>
<p>If you connect a Dropbox account to use it as a remote backup destination, the plugin contacts Dropbox APIs.</p>
<ul>
<li>Endpoints used:
<ul>
<li><code>https://api.dropboxapi.com/oauth2/token</code> — to exchange and refresh OAuth tokens.</li>
<li><code>https://api.dropboxapi.com/2/*</code> — to query account info, list files, and delete files.</li>
<li><code>https://content.dropboxapi.com/2/*</code> — to upload and download backup archives.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>What is sent: your Dropbox app key and secret provided by you, the refresh/access token, backup ZIP files you choose to upload, and request metadata such as paths, filenames, and sizes.</li>
<li>When: only when you start OAuth connection from the settings page, run a backup that has Dropbox selected as a destination, or browse, restore, or delete remote backups stored in Dropbox.</li>
<li>Provider terms: <a href="https://www.dropbox.com/terms" rel="nofollow ugc">Dropbox Terms of Service</a> and <a href="https://www.dropbox.com/privacy" rel="nofollow ugc">Dropbox Privacy Policy</a>.</li>
</ul>
<h4>Amazon S3 and S3-compatible services (including Cloudflare R2) (optional, opt-in)</h4>
<p>If you configure an S3-compatible remote destination, the plugin contacts the endpoint you specify in the destination settings.</p>
<ul>
<li>Endpoints used: AWS S3 endpoints such as <code>https://s3.<region>.amazonaws.com</code> and <code>https://<bucket>.s3.<region>.amazonaws.com</code>, Cloudflare R2 endpoints such as <code>https://<accountid>.r2.cloudflarestorage.com</code>, or the custom S3-compatible endpoint URL you enter.</li>
<li>What is sent: your access key ID, the SigV4-signed request, the backup ZIP file you choose to upload, and request metadata such as bucket, object key, and size. Your secret access key is used locally to sign requests and is not sent as plain text.</li>
<li>When: only when you test the connection, run a backup that has the S3 destination selected, or browse, restore, or delete remote backups stored in the bucket.</li>
<li>Provider terms: depend on the provider you configure. For AWS, see <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/service-terms/" rel="nofollow ugc">AWS Service Terms</a> and <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/privacy/" rel="nofollow ugc">AWS Privacy Notice</a>. For S3-compatible providers, see the terms and privacy policy of the provider you choose.</li>
</ul>
<h4>FTP and SFTP servers (optional, opt-in)</h4>
<p>If you configure an FTP or SFTP destination, the plugin connects to the server details you enter in the destination settings.</p>
<ul>
<li>Endpoints used: the FTP or SFTP host, port, and path entered by you.</li>
<li>What is sent: the credentials or key details you configure, backup ZIP files you choose to upload, and request metadata required to list, upload, download, or delete files.</li>
<li>When: only when you test the connection, run a backup that has the FTP/SFTP destination selected, or browse, restore, or delete remote backups stored on that server.</li>
<li>Provider terms: depend on the FTP/SFTP server or hosting provider you choose.</li>
</ul>
<h4>Webhooks (optional, opt-in)</h4>
<p>If you configure one or more webhook URLs in the scheduled backup settings, the plugin sends an HTTP POST to those URLs when a scheduled backup completes, depending on your notification settings.</p>
<ul>
<li>Endpoints used: any webhook URL you enter in the settings.</li>
<li>What is sent: a small JSON payload containing the site URL, backup name, backup type, result status, and timestamp. No credentials, database content, or backup archive content is sent in the webhook payload.</li>
<li>When: only when a scheduled backup task with a webhook configured finishes.</li>
<li>Provider terms: depend on the third-party endpoint you enter. The plugin authors are not affiliated with any specific webhook provider.</li>
</ul>
<h4>Site-to-site migration Connect API (optional, opt-in)</h4>
<p>If you enable the built-in Connect API and use the Push/Pull migration feature, this WordPress site exchanges data with another WordPress site that you control.</p>
<ul>
<li>Endpoints used: <code>/wp-json/stifbt/v1/connect</code>, <code>/wp-json/stifbt/v1/push</code>, and <code>/wp-json/stifbt/v1/pull</code> on the remote site URL you enter manually.</li>
<li>What is sent: a shared secret generated by you and, for Push/Pull operations, the migration ZIP package containing the data you chose to migrate.</li>
<li>When: only when you test the connection or start a Push/Pull migration from the migration screen.</li>
<li>Provider terms: not applicable; the remote endpoint is another WordPress site under your control. No third-party service is involved.</li>
</ul>


StifLi Backup Tools

WordPress backup, restore, migration, staging & remote storage tools built for reliable protection on real hosting environments.

Safe Staging vs StifLi Backup Tools