Do you ever make a change on your website only to find that it creates more problems than it solves? Do you want to know How to Undo Changes in WordPress? Then keep reading this blog post.
The WordPress platform gives you the option of canceling unwanted changes in a number of ways.
You can revert a page or post back to its previous version, undo a plugin update, restore a backup file or clear all post revisions.
When any of these changes are made to your WordPress site, a notification appears at the top of your site indicating where you can undo or cancel changes.
Let’s take a look at some of these methods and how they work.
Table of Contents
What are Post Revisions?
Post revisions in WordPress allow you to save multiple versions of a page or post.
As the administrator, you can go back and view revisions from the Edit screen for any draft you have saved. You can also make additional changes to a specific revision if necessary.
If your website is not set up with post revisions enabled, there will be no notification displayed for you to cancel changes.
Post revisions are a great way to review multiple edits before deleting a page or post. This makes it easy to go back and debug problems on draft posts and pages. Usually, when a page has been saved as a draft, the post revision options are automatically enabled.
How to use Post Revisions?
When you are ready to revert a page or post back to its previous version, start by going into the Edit screen for that page or post. You can then choose to view the current revision or go back in time up to five times.
WordPress will automatically create new revisions as you make changes, creating up to five revisions for each post or page. The newest edits will be at the top of the list, with older revisions listed below in reverse chronological order.
To revert a page or post back to an earlier revision, click on it from the list and make your updates. If you decide not to save these changes, keep in mind that the changes will still be made to the newer revisions.
How to Clear Post Revisions?
If you constantly use post revisions on your site, it may cause problems over time. For example, if you have multiple users making edits to posts and pages at the same time, these revisions can slow down your website. When this happens, you can clear all post revisions for a page or post.
To clear all revisions, go into the Edit screen for that page or post and click on the “Trash” icon at the top of the Revision History box. Then check the box to Delete All Revisions. Once you delete your drafts, they will no longer appear in your Revision History.
How to Undo Plugin Updates?
If you make a mistake when updating a plugin, WordPress will not automatically revert the change. In fact, it won’t even notify you that an update has been made. This can cause problems if your website breaks after updating a plugin.
To undo plugin updates, use the Plugin Editor to open and edit your active plugins from within WordPress. To access the Plugin Editor, go to Dashboard > Plugins in your WordPress sidebar menu. Locate the plugin you want to edit and check the box in front of it to activate the Plugin Editor.
Once you can see that your plugin is active for editing, click on “Details” in the upper right corner of this screen to reveal a list of options. From this list, choose the option to undo your plugin upgrade. You can then save changes and update or close your plugin. You can also consider re-installing wordpress.
How do you Undo a Theme Change?
The easiest way to undo a theme change is by restoring your website from an earlier backup file. This keeps all of your site’s customizations intact and lets you go back to an older version of your theme.
To restore from a previous backup, go into Dashboard > Tools and click on the “Backups” link. To find an earlier backup file, select “All Backups” from the menu and use the calendar feature to search for dates that you changed themes or made other customizations.
You can then check off a specific backup file and click on Download File to move it to your desktop. Once you have downloaded this file, upload it to your site’s server through your FTP client software. Then create a new database by going into cPanel > MySQL Databases > Create Database from within your website hosting account.
Next, you will need to login to phpMyAdmin from within your hosting account. Select Databases from the menu and use the login credentials provided by your host to access phpMyAdmin. Click on wp_options from the side menu, then scroll down until you see “theme” listed as a table under your database name.
Click on themes and look for information about the theme you’re trying to revert back to. If its release date is earlier than what you’re currently using, it means that it has an older version of your site’s code and will be compatible with your website. You can then click on Import and follow the prompts to upload your old theme file into this section of phpMyAdmin.
Once it finishes importing, go back into WordPress and choose Appearance > Themes from within your sidebar menu. You should see your old theme listed on the screen and be able to activate it by clicking on Activate next to its name.
You can then go back and remove your new theme and re-save all of your site’s customizations by going through Dashboard > Appearance > Editor within WordPress. This will replace your current choices with older versions, allowing you to get back to where you were before updating the theme.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs):
Q. What does “Revert” mean?
A. Reverting changes is undoing updates, whether it’s an update to a plugin or theme. Restoring your website to an earlier version is also referred to as reverting. It usually works out great, when you did something wrong, are now in a panic to get the things done right.
Q. How do I revert my site back to the original theme if I updated it by accident?
A. The simplest way to revert your site back to the original theme is by using a backup file and restoring it. This keeps all of your site’s customizations intact and lets you revert to an older version of the theme. To find a previous backup, select “All Backups” from the WordPress Tools page in cPanel, then use the calendar to search for dates when you changed themes. Download your backup file, then upload it to your website’s server through FTP client software.
Q. Do I need to delete the old theme files before uploading the backup file?
A. No, you can upload both files without deleting existing ones. Reverting changes by importing a previous version of your site’s code will replace your current installed theme with an older version that’s compatible with your website.
Conclusion:
Reversing changes in WordPress is a simple process, as long as you have backups ready for this purpose. Always be sure to create a backup before upgrading your plugins and themes, then revert back if anything goes wrong with the latest updates.
I hope this article cleared your query of How to Undo Changes in WordPress. Thank you for reading my article.
