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How to Undo Changes in WordPress (Posts and Contact Forms)
by Osama Tahir on Apr 15, 2022
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Do you want to undo changes in WordPress and restore a post or form to a previous version?
We’ve all mistakenly deleted or broken our forms or pages. The good thing is, WordPress saves multiple versions of your content by default, so you can go back to a previous state at any time.
In this post, we’ll show you how to undo changes to any post or WordPress form and restore it to an older version.
Why Post History and Backups Are Useful
When creating content, the first draft is rarely ever perfect and usually requires at least a few changes. In fact, the best pieces of content are usually a product of a lot of editing and refinements.
Thankfully, WordPress automatically saves a copy of your post every 60 seconds (Classic editor) or 10 seconds (block editor). The auto-saving feature ensures that your changes are stored if your browser freezes or your computer restarts for any reason.
WordPress also creates a backup of your content when you manually click Save Draft, Update, or Publish.
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Naturally, it’s incredibly valuable to have a record of all the changes that you and other users have made to your site content. Here are some reasons highlighting the importance of WordPress revisions:
Undoing mistakes: Backups give you the freedom to write content stress-free, knowing you can easily undo errors and restore your copy to an older version at any time.
Easier management for multi author sites: When there are multiple authors on the same site, it’s a lot easier for an editor to use revisions to track the complete history of changes to a post and undo any mistakes if necessary.
Efficient SEO and CRO experimentation: Running optimization experiments is considerably more convenient when you have backups of all changes made over time. You can easily revert to the best-performing version of your post or WordPress form using revisions.
WordPress has a built-in feature revisions feature for posts. But for contact forms, you can only access revisions if your form builder plugin supports it.
How to Undo Changes in WordPress for Posts and Contact Forms
Below, you’ll find step-by-step tutorials for undoing changes within a post or contact form in WordPress:
Let’s dive right in.
Restoring a Post Revision in WordPress
When editing a post in WordPress, you can use a quick undo to erase your last few changes using the button shown in the image below:
You can also use keyboard shortcuts (Ctrl+Z on Windows and Command+Z on Mac) to undo changes.
But this quick undo doesn’t work if you want to roll back to an earlier saved version or to a previous date.
To restore a saved version of your content, look on the right-hand pane of the WordPress content editor. You’ll find the Revisions option is under the Posts. Click on Revisions to access your post’s saved history.
Inside the revision screen, you’ll find the current version of your post selected by default. To see earlier versions, use the horizontal slider on the top of the page. As you move the slider, you’ll see a before-and-after comparison of each saved revision with a previous version on the left column and the selected version on the right.
A single post can have many different versions depending on how old the post is and the number of times it’s been saved. You can also compare any two revisions by checking the box next to Compare any two revisions. This will add another slider on the horizontal bar that you can move to compare revisions from any two different points in time in your saved history.
When you’ve found the version that you’d like to restore your post, click on Restore This Revision.
Post Revisions in the Classic WordPress Editor
If you’re still using the classic WordPress editor, the Revisions interface is slightly different. On your right-hand pane, you should see a Revisions option within the Publish menu. Click on the Browse link next to Revisions to access your post’s saved history.
The revisions screen is exactly the same here as in the Gutenberg editor. Simply use the slider on the top to select a revision and restore it.
Restoring a Contact Form Revision in WordPress
Like posts, a single contact form can also have different versions as you try to add different fields and customize the form in various ways over time.
However, not many WordPress form builder plugins save backups of your forms and allow you to undo changes.
WPForms is the best WordPress contact form plugin that supports form revisions. Let’s see how you can use WPForms to roll back your contact forms to a saved version.
But first, of course, make sure you have WPForms installed on your site. If you need help, see how to install WPForms instructions.
Once it’s installed and you’ve started editing your forms , WPForms will back up a copy of your form each time you Save it after making new changes. To access your form revisions history, simply click on the form revisions icon on the bottom left corner of the WPForms interface.
This will open the Form Revisions panel, where you can find a list of all of your saved versions of the form.
The list displays the name of the user that saved the form revision as well as the time and date it was created. You can view any revision by clicking on it.
Once you click on a revision, you’ll see a version of the form with the exact fields and settings at the time it was saved. You can repeat this process to cycle through different versions of your form.
When you’ve found a version that you’d like to roll back to, click on that revision from the Forms Revisions panel and then click on Restore this revision link on the alert bar on the top of your form.
Now, you can either stick with this form version the way it is, or you can edit it by adding new fields or changing settings like you normally would. Don’t forget to click on Save after making any changes.
When you’re viewing form revisions, you can also return to your current version by clicking the Go back to the current version link on the alert bar.
And there you have it! You now know how to undo changes in WordPress. Whether it’s a post you want to roll back to an earlier version or a contact form revision you’d like to restore, it’s all possible if you know a few WordPress settings and have the right plugins!
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