Restoring a backup

Restore is designed like a checklist, not a “Are you sure?” dialog: you choose the scope, see exactly what will be overwritten, confirm deliberately, watch progress, and can undo afterwards.

Restore from the Dashboard

1. In the backup history, click Restore on the set you want. If the set only exists on a remote destination, Chada Backup downloads it first and shows that progress.
2. Choose scope — restore everything (default), or only the database or only files.
3. Confirm — the screen lists what will be overwritten, shows that the set’s checksums were verified, and explains that a safety snapshot of the current database is taken first. Type the confirmation word to continue.
4. Progress — the pipeline runs Verifying → Safety snapshot → Maintenance mode → Extracting → Importing database → Finishing. Visitors see a maintenance page during the import.
5. Done — “Site restored to …” with an Undo restore button, available for 24 hours.

Undo a restore

If the restored site isn’t what you expected, click Undo restore on the success screen (or run wp chada-backup undo --yes). The safety snapshot is imported back and the site returns to the state it was in right before the restore.

If a restore fails

The failure screen tells you which step failed and confirms that the safety snapshot is intact. The database is rolled back to the snapshot automatically; nothing is left half-applied.

Import a backup from another site

Import is how you recover onto a fresh WordPress install after a server is lost, and how you move a site by hand. It’s free on every tier.

1. On the Dashboard, click Import next to Back Up Now.
2. Either drag and drop the set’s files into the browser (manifest.json plus the archives — in any order; the panel shows which pieces are present and which are still missing) or, for very large sets, upload them over SFTP into the import folder path shown on screen and click Scan for backups.
3. Chada Backup verifies every file against the manifest. An incomplete set tells you exactly which archive is missing; a checksum mismatch tells you which file to re-download from the source.
4. The imported set appears in the history with an Imported · from example.com badge and can be restored like any other.

Cross-site restore and migration

When a set was created on a different site (the manifest’s site URL differs from this one), the restore wizard shows an origin banner and adds a URL rewrite step: old URL → new URL, plus the table prefix if it differs, with a count of the URLs that will be rewritten — including inside serialized data. This rewrite is a Premium feature. On the free tier you can still restore the set without rewriting (useful when you’re restoring onto the same domain), with a caution note.

From the command line

wp chada-backup list
wp chada-backup restore <set-id> --yes
wp chada-backup restore <set-id> --components=db --yes
wp chada-backup undo --yes