You might have caught up with the situation when you want to revert your work.
I know, I’ve been there a lot, like all the time. And if you’re like me, or you faced it the first time, then this post is going to help you out.
I’ll show you how to undo in WordPress, using its core feature, revisions, or autosaves.
The revisions and autosaves are like a history of your recent work, select it and go back to its previous version.
In this post, first, I’ll show you how you can undo changes in WordPress, and then I will share a bit more information on revisions and autosaves.
The best practise is to have your website backup all the time, here's a step-by-step guide.
1. Undo Changes in WordPress
I know in a situation like that, we are looking for a solution right away. Follow the steps below, and you’ll be good to go.
First, open the post you want to undo changes on, then in the right sidebar, find a Revisions tab, and click on it.
And this is how the revisions interface will look like it’ll be the same for both Classic and Gutenberg editors.
Here, you can compare different versions of the post with the above bar by scrolling it back and forth.
The green color will indicate that something added, and the red color will indicate that something removed.
And for some reason, if you don’t want to compare the two immediate after versions of the post, you can click on the, Compare any two revisions.
Before restoring, remember, there are two ways of restoring your revisions.
- Automatic, overwrite everything method.
- And manual copy/paste method.
When you find the revision you want to restore, click on, Restore This Revision.
This option will restore everything in the version for you and overwrite the entire content.
If you want to restore a specific part of the content, you can copy and paste it from one revision to another, which will help you get the previous work without overwriting everything.
Congrats, you have now successfully restored your previous work.
Can I still go to restore the recent version (the one we restored from)?
Yes, the WordPress revisions have got a lot of copies of your work.
2. Revisions and Autosaves in WordPress
The classic editor saves the version of the post every 60 seconds when you’re editing something.
And the Gutenberg (new WordPress block Editor) saves the post every 10 seconds, but it only saves one copy.
So, you can choose and restore any version you want. But here’s a thing if you’re overdoing it, it will bloat the server (your database), and that’s something good to happen.
I will recommend you limit the number of revisions the WordPress saves.
And here’s a thing, whenever you click on Save Draft, Publish, or Update, WordPress will save a snapshot of your post.
WordPress will automatically save the copy of your post, and that’s autosave.
How can you limit the autosaves in Gutenberg?
You can limit the autosave for Gutenberg using a simple plugin, Disable Gutenberg Autosave.
3. What’s a Great Practice for not Losing your Information?
I would highly recommend everyone to take a full website backup whenever you post something or before you want to update something.
So, if something happens to your website in the future, you will still have a complete backup of your website, with which you can always restore the original version.
Restore a Snapshot
All the hosting providers have snapshots of your website so they can restore your website to its original form if you mess up something.
Best Cloud Hosting Service? Digital Ocean starts at $5/month, get FREE $100 Credit.
In Digital Ocean, you can find Snapshots under the Images section in the left sidebar.
