The Moodle Guide for Faculty

Backing up your course bundles all your activities and resources into one file that you can later restore to our or some other Moodle.  This is a great way to save an entire course for future use, including text labels, sections, and links to online resources.  You can also use backups to transfer courses from one institution to another. Keep in mind that as we continue to upgrade and improve Moodle, some material from very old backups may need some adjustment after being restored to Moodle. When moving from one institution or another you may need to enlist the help of a Moodle administrator at the other institution, and differences between Moodle installations may introduce unanticipated complications.

As a fallback, you may also want to print a copy of your course page and download all the files from your course, including readings and other documents you uploaded. Check out our instructions to download all your course files.

How to back up your Moodle course

1. In your Administration block, choose the Backup link.
   
2. You will see the Backup Settings page.
   
3. If you want to save everything from your course, click Jump to final step to start importing immediately. Otherwise, click Next and on the next screen you can un-select specific resources if you like.
4. You should see a message saying that "The backup file was successfully created."  Click Continue.
5. You will see a Restore Course page.  Scroll to the bottom to find the User private backup area.  This is where you will find all the backups you have made.  Find the one you just created using the Date column.
6. Click the Download link to save your backup file to your computer.
7. Your internet browser will show you a popup window with download options.  Choose Save File in the popup window.
   

Your course backup file will now be a .mbz file located in the Downloads folder on your computer.  The .mbz file format is unique to Moodle. You won't be able to open the file directly on your computer, but once it has been restored to Moodle at a later time, you will have access to the contents.  You should rename the file to something you can remember easily (like the title of the course) and save it somewhere you will be able to locate it later - either on your computer or on Google Drive.