Getting started

This tutorial takes you from nothing to a real, verified backup that you can restore — in about ten minutes. Follow it top to bottom; each step is a command you run and the output you should see.

By the end you'll have created a backup, inspected it, confirmed its integrity, restored it, and know how to make it production-ready.

What you'll do#

1. Install the package into a Laravel app.
2. Create your first backup.
3. See what was stored.
4. Verify the backup can be trusted.
5. Restore it — safely.
6. Make it production-ready: encrypt it, send it off-site, and run it on a schedule.

Before you start#

You need an existing Laravel 12 or 13 application and PHP 8.3+. If you back up a database, its command-line tools (for example mysqldump for MySQL) must be installed. The full list is on the Installation page — but for a first run against SQLite or files only, you need nothing extra.

1. Install the package#

From your application's root, require the package and publish its config:

composer require nyoncode/laravel-backup-manager
php artisan vendor:publish --tag="backup-manager-config"

That's it — Laravel registers the package automatically, and you now have a config/backup-manager.php file. The defaults back up your whole application (database + files) to local storage, which is perfect for this tutorial.

2. Create your first backup#

Run the default backup:

php artisan backup:run

You'll see a summary of what was captured:

 INFO  Running backup for profile [default]….
 
Archive ............ default-2026-07-19-020000-a1b2c3.tar.gz
Mode ............... Archive
Size ............... 4.72 MB
Databases .......... 1
Files .............. 128
Destinations ....... local
 
 INFO  Backup completed successfully.

You just created your first backup. It lives on the local disk under the backups/ folder.

3. See what was stored#

List the backups the package knows about:

php artisan backup:list

Each backup is two files: the archive itself (a compressed .tar you can optionally encrypt) and a *.manifest.json next to it. The manifest is a plain, unencrypted record of what's inside — the environment, the checksum of the archive, and a hash of every file — so a backup can be checked and trusted on its own, even without this package.

4. Check it can be trusted#

A backup is only worth having if it isn't corrupted. Verify the newest one against its manifest:

php artisan backup:verify

 INFO  Verifying backup [default-2026-07-19-020000-a1b2c3]….
 
Archive checksum ... OK
Files ............. 128/128 verified
 
 INFO  Backup is valid.

5. Restore it#

Restoring puts the backup's contents back. Try it:

php artisan backup:restore

The command asks you to confirm, then verifies the archive before touching anything. By default it also takes a pre-restore snapshot and rolls everything back automatically if the restore fails — so a bad restore never leaves you worse off than before. You can restore just the database or just files; see Restore for the options.

Try restores on staging first. Restoring overwrites current data with the backup's data — that's the whole point, so run it where you mean it.

6. Make it production-ready#

A local, unencrypted backup is a great start. Three changes turn it into something you'd trust in production:

• Encrypt it. Set an algorithm and a key so the archive is unreadable at rest. See Security & the manifest.
• Send it off-site. A backup on the same server as your app disappears with the server. Add an S3 (or FTP/SFTP/…) disk to the profile's destinations and write to both at once. See Storage destinations.
• Run it automatically. Turn on the built-in schedule so backups, cleanup and health checks happen without you. See Scheduling & monitoring.

For example, in config/backup-manager.php:

'profiles' => [
    'default' => [
        // …
        'destinations' => ['s3', 'local'],   // off-site + a local copy
    ],
],
'encryption' => [
    'algorithm' => 'aes-256-gcm',
    'key' => env('BACKUP_ENCRYPTION_KEY'),   // 32 bytes, base64: accepted
],
'schedule' => ['enabled' => true],

Where to go next#

• Configuration — every option, explained section by section.
• Databases and Files — choose exactly what to capture.
• Retention — keep history under control so backups don't fill the disk.
• Pro & the UI dashboard — incremental backups, monitoring and a live web dashboard.