1. Introduction
Apart from the backup itself, being able to restore quickly and easily is a critical skill in managing your website. Here we’ll step through a couple of scenarios.
- Restoring files
- Restoring databases
- Restoring an entire site at once
You’ll need to be able to do both successfully for recovering a wordpress site or even most other CMS platforms as they are typically supported by a database on the backend.
This article assumes you have a valid backup you can use to restore from. Please check our articles on creating onetime backups as well as scheduled backups.
Lets get started by first accessing the backup manager. Click on “websites and domains” from the left navigation menu, then select “backup manager” from the menu on the right side of the page.
2. Selecting backup to restore from
In case you need to restore a single file, folder or even a whole site’s worth of files it’s relatively easy to do.
From the backup manager select the backup you wish to restore from by clicking on the Creation date.
3. Restoring files
You will then see the restore screen for that particular backup. Since we want to restore files for this scenario. Select “Selected Objects” and from the Type of Objects to Restore (drop down menu) choose “Files of domains”. You’ll then select “Add files” to choose which files you want to restore.
Your website files will be located in the httpdocs folder so click on it first. Unless of course you wish to restore the entire directory you may do so from here by checking the box next to the httpdocs folder.
To select individual files. navigate to the folder or file you wish to restore and check the box next to it.
Click OK once you have selected the files and/or folders you wish to restore.
Now that you have selected the files you wish to restore. In the restoration options choose “Configuration and contents of the selected objects”. The option to restore on the configuration does not apply to files.
You may also choose to receive an email notification when the restore is complete. However the restore should complete fairly quickly so you probably won’t have time to go get a cup of coffee or anything.
Click ‘Restore’ to start the restoration.
A pop up notification will appear when the restore is complete.
4. Restoring a database
If you need to restore a database only the steps are quite similar to restoring a file. Simply select the type of object to restore as ‘Database’. And click the database you wish to restore, it will populate the ‘Selected’ box on the right.
Next you will want to select your restore options.
Configuration and Contents of the selected objects
This option will restore the database, tables and their data
Only Configuration of the selected objects
This option will restore an empty database and the users but NOT the tables or their data.
You may also choose to receive an email notification when the restore is complete. However the restore should complete fairly quickly so you probably won’t have time to go get a cup of coffee or anything.
Click ‘Restore’ to start the restoration.
A pop up notification will appear when the restore is complete.
5. Restoring an Entire site
Restoring an entire site simply combines the 2 above restores into a single action. Restoring all the files in the httpdocs folder as well as the associated databases.
The steps to restore are all the same except you will select the type of objects to restore as ‘sites’
Select the site you wish to restore by simply clicking on it, it will then populate the right side “selected” box.
Next you will want to select your restore options.
Configuration and Contents of backup
This option will restore the database, tables and their data
Only Configuration of the objects
This option will restore an empty database and the users but NOT the tables or their data.
You may also choose to receive an email notification when the restore is complete. However the restore should complete fairly quickly so you probably won’t have time to go get a cup of coffee or anything.
Click ‘Restore’ to start the restoration.
A pop up notification will appear when the restore is complete.