How to View and Restore Your Switchweb Timeline Backups

Switchweb takes an automatic daily backup of your websites and databases and keeps it for 30 days. If something breaks, gets deleted, or an update goes wrong, you can roll back yourself from the control panel without contacting support. This guide covers how to find a snapshot and how to restore one.

How to view your snapshots

• Log in to the Switchweb Control Panel
• Go to Timeline Backups
• Select Manage next to the package you want
• Select View Snapshots next to either the webspace snapshots or the database snapshots

After selecting View Snapshots you will see the Snapshot Time drop-down, listing every snapshot from the previous 30 days. Restoring is done from the same screen, so you do not need to raise a ticket.

What is and is not covered

Timeline Backups cover your webspace and your databases. They do not cover your mailboxes. If your email matters to you, and for most businesses it matters more than the website does, you need a separate arrangement for it: a local mail client holding a copy, or a dedicated mail backup service.

Webspace and databases are backed up separately

This is the detail that catches people out. Your files and your database are two different snapshots, taken at the same time but restored independently. A WordPress site is both: the files hold your theme, plugins and uploads, and the database holds your posts, pages, settings and users.

If you restore only one, you can end up with a mismatch. A database from Tuesday alongside files from Friday will usually produce errors, because plugin versions and the settings they expect no longer agree. Unless you are certain the problem is confined to one side, restore both from the same snapshot time.

Choosing the right restore point

Pick the last snapshot from before the problem started, not simply the most recent one. Two cases where this matters:

• After a failed update. The snapshot from the morning of the update is usually the one you want.
• After a hack. Sites are often compromised days or weeks before anyone notices, so the newest snapshot may contain the same malicious files. Work backwards to a point you are confident predates the compromise, then close whatever let the attacker in before you go live again. Our guide on what to do when your WordPress site has been hacked covers the full sequence.

Before you restore

A restore overwrites what is there now, so anything added since the snapshot will be lost. If you have had orders, form submissions, comments or new content since then, export them first. It is also worth noting the current state somewhere so you can compare afterwards.

The 30-day window, and why you should still keep your own backup

Timeline Backups are designed for recovering a site in place, quickly. They are not a substitute for a copy you control, and there are three situations where only your own backup helps:

• You need to go back further than 30 days, which happens more often than you would think with a problem nobody noticed for a while
• You leave Switchweb and want to take your history with you
• You need to restore somewhere else entirely

A monthly download kept off the server covers all three. It takes a few minutes and costs nothing.

Test a restore before you need one

Most people find out whether their backups actually work on the worst possible day. Restoring a snapshot to a staging copy once, while nothing is wrong, tells you three things: that the backup is complete, that you know where the controls are, and roughly how long the process takes. Fifteen minutes now saves a great deal of panic later.

Planning a move rather than a recovery? See our guide to moving your website to a new host, which covers what to take with you and in what order.