How to Restore Deleted Content in WordPress (Visual Guide)

It can be very frustrating when things don’t go right an you need to restore something on your website. Thankfully there are three ways to restore deleted content and revisions on your WordPress website.

I’ve found myself in the position many times where a change I made completely ruined everything. I either had to go back to a previous revision or restore deleted content on my site.

Here is my guide for restoring content and revisions on your website with these three different methods.

How to Restore Page Content and Revisions

Accidents happen. Especially when we’re making multiple changes at one time and something goes wrong. Then you don’t know what change you made is the one that messed everything up and now you’re in trouble.

Sometimes it’s just easier to go back and start over completely. Thankfully WordPress gives us an option for restoring deleted content.

This trick works whether you’re working on a post or page. Here is what you need to do:

Step 1:

On the right side column of your post or page, locate the “Revisions” section and click on it.

Step 2:

On the next screen, you can see your revision history by scrolling bar in the top center. Each vertical line indicates a revision.

Additionally, you can see the name of the user who made the change (this only works if you have multiple users set up on your site). You can also see what date and time the revision was made.

As you scroll down the page, the revisions will be highlighted red and any added content will be highlighted green. This way you can compare between revisions. The most recent revision appears on the right-hand side and the previous revision appears on the left.

Once you’ve found the revision that you want to restore back to, you need to click on the blue “Restore This Revision” button on the upper right.

When you click the “Restore This Revision” button, you’ll be restoring to the changes that appear on the right column.

How to Restore Deleted Pages & Posts

Sometimes, we accidentally delete pages that we need to keep. Thankfully, WordPress makes it easy to restore deleted pages too. If you need to restore a deleted page, the process is very simple and pain free.

Step 1:

If you need to restore a deleted page, go to “Pages” in the left column of your WordPress dashboard. If you need to restore a deleted post, click on “Posts”.

Next, you should see a tab across the top that says “Trash“. Click on it.

Step 2:

You should now see a list of your deleted posts or pages.

When you hover your mouse over the post/page you need to restore, you should see a “Restore” button.

When you click on the “Restore” button, your post will be removed from trash and put back in your “All” tab.

IMPORTANT NOTE:

Your items will only stay in the trash for 30 days before WordPress automatically permanently deletes your posts, pages, or comments.

How to Restore Permanently Deleted Pages

Whether you accidentally hit the “Delete Permanently” button on one of your trashed items or WordPress permanently deleted something because it was in trash for 30 days, it can be very frustrating.

Unfortunately, there isn’t a very pain-free way of getting permanently deleted pages back.

If the page have been deleted for more than 30 days and you’ve made other changes to the website that you cannot lose, you will need to completely recreate the page.

There is one way that you could go back and at least see what the old page looked like so you can see your design and wording.

If the page was just deleted recently and you haven’t made any other changes to the website (or at least nothing that importnat that you don’t mind losing), you can restore a back up from your web host.

See Deleted Pages with Internet Archive Wayback Machine

Step 1:

Go to https://archive.org/web/ and type in your URL in the search bar. If you know the exact URL of the page you are looking for, put that URL in the bar. If not, just type in your domain name.

Then click “Browse History“.

Step 2:

You will now see a chart showing all the snapshots of your website in the past. For example, localwebstrategies.com has 52 snapshots from October 2010 to January 2019.

Each colored date on the calendar shows when Internet Archive captured a snapshot of the site. You can click on any of those years and dates. for this example, I will click on the July 2, 2018 snapshot. To view it, I’ll click on the link “18:31:04”.

Step 3:

Now I can click through the different pages on the site at that time and see if I can locate the page that has since been deleted.

Restore a Backup from Your Web Host

This is actually one of the reasons that I highly recommend using Bluehost for your web hosting service. They make it really simple to restore a backup on your site.

If you’re not comfortable with initiating the backup yourself, you can very easily call or chat with their tech support team and they will help you.

Here is how you restore a back up on Bluehost.

Please note that these instructions are for Bluehost users with Plus Hosting. Settings may look different for you depending on what level plan you are using.

It’s also important to note that if you have multiple sites on your Bluehost account, this is going to restore a backup on ALL of the sites. Therefore, any changes you made on any of the sites will be reverted back to the date you choose in the steps below.

Step 1:

Log into your Bluehost account and navigate to the “hosting” page.

Under the “files” section, click on “Site Backup Pro“.

Step 2:

In the section called “Website Files”, click on “Restore“.

Step 3:

In the dropdown box next to “From Backup” you can choose the latest daily back up, weekly backup, or monthly backup. Choose the one you want and click the “Restore Now” button.

The restore it’s self will take some time depending on how large your website is. Please be patient with it as it could take a long time and you’ll probably start to wonder if it’s doing anything at all.

If you have any concerns, just contact Bluehost and they will help you!