Before you restore
- Choose the right moment. The last backup from before the problem, not necessarily the most recent one.
- Back up the current state. Even damaged, it may contain what has been added since: an order, a message. If the restore doesn't fix anything, you can come back to it.
- Warn anyone who works on the site: whatever they change during the restore will be lost.
What disappears
Everything added or changed since the backup: posts, orders, bookings, accounts created since. If your site receives them, note down today's before restoring.
The steps
- Open your backup tool, and choose the backup.
- Look at what will be replaced.
- Start the restore, and let it run to the end.
- Clear the caches: your cache plugin's, and your host's if it has one.
- Check the site: a few pages, the admin area, a form, a shop's basket.
Onto another WordPress
Restoring onto another site means moving, or setting up a test site. One extra difficulty: the address changes, and it is written all over the database, in links, images and page builder settings. A simple “search and replace” isn't enough: some data is stored with its length, and a longer or shorter address breaks it.