The worst day to discover a broken backup is the day you need it. Verification takes five minutes at download time and turns a hopeful file into a proven one.
Exports get cut by timeouts, downloads stop at 97 percent, disks fill mid-write. Every one of those failures leaves behind a file that looks like a backup. These are the checks that separate a real one from a convincing fake — do them while the original site is still healthy.
Open the end of the file (or run tail on it). A finished mysqldump ends with a -- Dump completed line including the date. A phpMyAdmin export ends after the last table's statements with its own closing comments. If the file stops mid-INSERT, it is incomplete — delete it and export again by a route that finishes.
You roughly know your sites. A shop doing daily orders should not produce a 40 KB database. Compare the new file with the previous backup's size — a sudden collapse to a fraction of the usual size is a warning even when the completion line is present. Also confirm the file contains your important tables: search it for a table name like orders or wp_posts.
The only complete proof: the data comes back.
restore_test.gunzip < backup.sql.gz | mysql -u user -p restore_testSELECT COUNT(*) FROM orders;).Do this on a local stack or a spare database — never test-import over your live database.
Verification is worth most as a routine: every scheduled backup gets at least the completion-line check automatically, and a test import once in a while. The scheduling page in this set shows how to build that routine. Five quiet minutes now beats a lost website later.
The full bulk database download process — live demo, every step on screen.
▶️ Watch Full VideoIt proves the export finished, which is the most common failure covered. For real confidence add the test import — it also proves the file survived download and storage without corruption.
At least once when you set up a new backup routine, and after any change to how backups are made. A quick completion-line check belongs with every single backup.
Yes — check the file ends cleanly after the last table rather than mid-statement, sanity-check its size, and test-import it. phpMyAdmin files need the same proof as any other dump.