Release highlights

Google Drive integration. On popular request we added native suport for Google Drive. Please read the documentation! Unlike other storage options file and folder names are not guaranteed to be unique in Google Drive, making for some interesting potential problems.

UTF8MB4 support under Joomla! 3.5. Akeeba Backup was already able to backup and restore database tables encoded in UTF8MB4 (Multibyte Unicode). Now you can use multibyte characters (e.g. Emoji) in the backup comment as well.

Ability to downgrade UTF8MB4 data to UTF8 during restoration. One challenge with the new UTF8MB4 support in Joomla! 3.5 is how do you move your site to a server which does not support UTF8MB4. Such a downgrade is nearly impossible to do manually. Luckily for you, Akeeba Backup can automatically perform the downgrade for you as long as you enable the option to convert the data to utf8 before restoring your database.

Joomla! 1.6 or later

This is not a typo! After considering the vast amount of changes in third party services Akeeba Backup integrates with (such as Dropbox and Amazon S3) we decided to reinstate compatibility with Joomla! 1.6, 1.7, 2.5, 3.0, 3.1, 3.2, 3.3, 3.4 and 3.5.

Please note that we do NOT recommend using Joomla! 1.x / 2.x or 3.0 to 3.3 inclusive on production sites due to major security issues. Support for these old versions is intended to give you the option of taking a full site backup prior to upgrading to the latest available Joomla! release.

PHP 5.3.3 or later 5.x version is required

The minimum required PHP version is 5.3.03. All versions of PHP from 5.3.03 onwards are supported, including 5.4, 5.5, 5.6 and the just released PHP 7.0. The component will not work on PHP 5.2 or earlier and will, in fact, refuse to install on it. We'd like to remind you that Joomla! 3.4 and earlier does NOT support PHP 7. Joomla! 3.5 (currently in beta) does support PHP 7. Akeeba Backup will work just fine in a Joomla! 3.5 site running on PHP 7.0.

Note: there is no such thing as PHP 6. PHP versions jumped from 5.6 to 7.0. Why? Well, it's a long story. TL;DR: It doesn't have to make sense, just accept it.

Changelog

Bug fixes

• [HIGH] Joomla! "Conservative" cache bug: component Options (e.g. Download ID, Secret Word, front-end backup feature) would be forgotten on the next page load
• [HIGH] Joomla! "Conservative" cache bug: the "How do I restore" popup can never be made to not display
• [HIGH] Joomla! "Conservative" cache bug: you could not apply the proposed Secret Word when prompted
• [HIGH] Joomla! "Conservative" cache bug: you could not enter the Download ID when prompted
• [LOW] Missing language strings in ALICE
• [MEDIUM] Fixed Rackspace CloudFiles when using a region different then London

New features

• Automatic detection and working around of temporary data load failure
• Direct download link to Akeeba Kickstart in the Manage Backups page
• Download log button from ALICE page
• Improved detection and removal of duplicate update sites
• Schedule Automatic backups button in the Configuration page's toolbar
• Schedule Automatic backups button is shown after the Configuration Wizard completes
• Working around PHP opcode cache issues occurring right before the restoration starts if the old restoration.php configuration file was not removed

Miscellaneous changes

• Chrome won't let developers restore the values of password fields it ERRONEOUSLY auto-fills with random passwords. We worked around Google's atrocious bugs with extreme prejudice. You're welcome.
• Remove obsolete FOF 2.x update site if it exists