Restore a website from a backup
Daily backups are taken on every plan and kept for a rolling window. You can restore them yourself.
Before you restore anything
Take a backup of the current broken state. It sounds absurd, and it is the step people skip and regret. If the restore turns out to be the wrong date, or the problem was not what you thought, this is the only way back. It costs two minutes.
Then decide what you actually need. Files and the database are restored separately, and you often want only one:
- A bad plugin update or edited theme file - restore files only. The database is fine and restoring it would discard any orders or comments since.
- Deleted content, a bad import, a corrupted table - restore the database only.
- A compromise - restore both, from a date you are confident is before it happened.
Restoring
In cPanel open the backup tool, pick the date, and choose files or the database. A full restore overwrites what is there now - it is not a merge, and anything created after that backup date is gone.
To recover a single file or folder instead, browse the backup and download just that, then put it back with File Manager. For one table, download the database backup and import that table alone through phpMyAdmin.
Which date
Choose the last backup before the problem started, not the most recent one. With a compromise, the infection is usually older than the day you noticed it - go back further than feels necessary and check.
After restoring
- Click through the site properly - home, a category, a form, the admin area.
- Re-apply legitimate changes made after the backup date.
- Fix the cause. A restore puts the site back and closes nothing.
- Take a fresh backup of the now-working site.
Keep a copy off the server
Our backups are held away from your account, which covers most scenarios. For anything business-critical, download a copy monthly as well. Two independent copies is the point - one backup is not a backup.