How To Restore Deleted Pages in WordPress

  • How To Restore Deleted Pages in WordPressIt is common for website owners to mistakenly delete important pages on their site. Fortunately, WordPress deleted pages can be quickly restored from the trash.

    The issue becomes complicated when the page is permanently deleted. In such cases, restoring the lost pages may involve using backup plugins or seeking Professional WordPress help.

    Have you mistakenly deleted your WordPress and can’t find a way to restore them? This post will provide you with all the tips you need to restore your pages.

    Content:

    Restoring from Trash

    WordPress deleted pages are kept in the trash for 30 days after deletion. Therefore, you should find your recently deleted pages in the trash folder in your WordPress dashboard.

    Restoring pages from the WordPress trash is a straightforward process. Follow the steps below to restore your pages from WordPress Trash.

    First, log in to your WordPress dashboard and navigate to All Pages >> Trash.

    All Pages >> Trash page - wordpress deleted pages

    You will see a list of deleted pages. Scan carefully to look for the pages you want to restore.

    To restore the deleted pages, tick the pages you want to restore.

    Next, select ‘Restore’ under ‘Bulk actions’ and then click on Apply.

    Tick desired pages and restore

    Your deleted WordPress pages will be automatically restored from the trash bin.

    However, this only applies if the pages were not permanently deleted or have not exceeded 30 days in the trash bin. If you have permanently deleted your pages, you can still restore them using the methods below.

    Restore Deleted Pages from Backup

    If you have permanently deleted your WordPress page, you cannot restore it from the trash. Thus, the next option is to restore it from your backup.

    However, this step is only possible if you are using a WordPress backup plugin such as UpdraftPlus or JetPack.

    The JetPack backup feature requires a premium subscription. Therefore, if you are not a premium user, you can not access the backup feature.

    However, UpdraftPlus is a free and dedicated WordPress backup plugin. It allows you to back up your WordPress site with its pages and posts.

    UpDraftPlus is also the most popular WordPress backup plugin, and we assume you have installed it on your site to create periodic backups of your website.

    To restore your WordPress page with the Updraftplus Backup plugin, follow the steps below:

    Log in to your WordPress admin dashboard and locate the UpdraftPlus plugin at the top. Next, place your cursor on it. After that, click on Backup/Restore to continue.

    Backup/Restore link - wordpress deleted pages

    Scroll down to the bottom of the page, where you can find all the existing backups.

    Next, click on Restore.

    Restore existing backups - wordpress deleted pages

    Your WordPress deleted pages will now be automatically restored to your WordPress website.

    Finally, click on Return to UpdraftPlus configuration to return to your dashboard.

    Restoration successful

    With the steps above, all deleted files before the restore point will be restored. Additionally, you can also set a backup schedule to automatically backup your website.

    To do that, click on Settings from the UpdraftPlus dashboard and select a backup schedule (e.g., weekly).

    After that, click on Save Changes to save your settings.

    Click on the Save Changes button - wordpress deleted pages

    Restore WordPress Deleted Pages using Google Cache

    Google Cache is another helpful tool to restore deleted WordPress pages. WordPress cache takes a snapshot of all sites online as at the last time they were accessed by Google Crawler.

    Further, you can make use of Google Cache to restore your website content. It is also a helpful tool to access pages that are temporarily down.

    Steps to Follow

    To use Google Cache to restore your deleted page, follow the steps below:

    Visit Google Search and enter ‘site:mywebsite.com’ into the search bar. You should replace ‘my website’ with your site’s domain name.

    Next, all the indexed pages on your site will appear on the Google Search Results. This step is helpful if you can’t remember the deleted page URL.

    Click on the three-dot menu on the page you want to restore.
    Click on three-dot menu

    Next, click on the dropdown arrow ^ at the top right corner. After that, click on Cached to see the last saved version of the page.

    Cached option - wordpress deleted pages

    You will now be shown a cached version of your page. You can copy the content of the page and recreate the page on WordPress.

    To copy text, click on the Text-only version.

    To view the full-page source code, click on View source.

    In our case, we needed the full-page source code since our deleted page contains non-textual elements.

    Full page source code

    The page source code will now be displayed. Select the entire code and copy it.

    Copy entire code

    You can now return to WordPress to add the copied html. Navigate to Pages >> Add New to do that.

    Add new pages section

    Next, enter a page name and change the editor to ‘Text.’ After that, paste the code and click on Preview to see your page.

    Preview page

    Your WordPress page has now been successfully restored.

    Page successfully restored

    While this method of recovering WordPress deleted pages can be effective, it is important to go through the copied code to remove unnecessary lines of code.

    Our team at FixRunner can help you go through this code to restore your page to its initial structure.

    Internet Archive

    The Internet Archive is an open-source digital library that collects digitized materials such as videos, software, images, and websites. Internet archive allows users to upload these resources on its portal.

    However, a large part of its collections are added by its crawlers. This includes over 832 billion web pages that are kept in its WayBack machine. Thus, deleted WordPress pages can still be restored from Internet Archive’s WayBack machine.

    Even better, the WayBack machine allows you to restore deleted WordPress pages from a specific date. So to restore WordPress deleted pages from Internet Archive’s WayBack machine, follow the steps below:

    First, visit the Internet Archive WayBack machine portal here.

    Next, enter the URL of the page you want to restore and click on Browse History.

    NB: You can refer to the Google Cache step above to see indexed links on your site if you can’t remember the page URL.

     wordpress deleted pages

    You can now view the report on the snapshots of your deleted page for different dates. Click on the specific year you want and then choose an available date.

    Only dates with the blue bubble can be selected.

    Select dates with blue bubble

    An average of 2 or more snapshots are normally captured at a time. Select one snapshot to continue.

    Select snapshot - wordpress deleted pages

    You are now viewing a restored version of your website. Click on the blue arrow > to view the next snapshots.

    Next, copy the page content and recreate the page on WordPress.

    Copy and recreate page content

    Alternatively, press Command + Option + U on MAC and CTRL + U on Windows / Linux to view the source code and copy it to your WordPress.

    However, you will have to do a lot of editing to remove the Internet Archive’s code. Luckily, you can easily contact professional WordPress Experts to assist.

    Restoring WooCommerce Pages

    Sometimes, WooCommerce pages such as cart page, checkout page and account page will be mistakenly deleted. These pages are sensitive pages that enable customers to complete transactions on your WooCommerce store.

    So we will show you how to restore WooCommerce store pages on WordPress below:

    First, log in to your WordPress dashboard and navigate to WooCommerce >> Status. After that, click on Tools.

    Tools section - wordpress deleted pages

    Scroll down and locate ‘Create default WooCommerce pages.’ Once you find it, Click on Create Pages. This will automatically search for missing WooCommerce pages and regenerate them.

    Create pages button

    Click OK to continue.

    Click OK to continue

    By following the steps above, all missing WooCommerce pages will be regenerated.

    Missing pages regenerated - wordpress deleted pages

    You can now return to WordPress pages and confirm that your deleted WooCommerce pages are now restored.

    Conclusion

    Restoring deleted pages on WordPress helps you to recover pages that have been mistakenly deleted. While restoring deleted pages from trash is the most common method, permanently deleted pages can be restored from backups, Google Cache and Internet Archive.

    This post has provided you with all the steps you can follow to restore deleted pages on WordPress, even if you have permanently deleted them.

    Finally, it is important to activate regular backups on your WordPress. This will enable you to restore website resources such as pages, posts, settings and media.

    FAQs

    Can I See Deleted Pages in WordPress?

    Yes, you can see deleted pages in WordPress. WordPress deleted pages are kept in the trash for 30 days. Therefore, you can see deleted pages on the trash as long as they have not exceeded  30 days. To view deleted pages in the trash folder, navigate to Pages >> Trash from your WordPress dashboard.

    Can you Delete Pages in WordPress?

    Yes. You can easily delete pages on WordPress. To delete a page in WordPress, log in to your WordPress dashboard. Next, navigate to Pages >> All Pages. Next, Choose the page you want to delete and place your cursor on it. 

    Finally, click on Trash to delete the page.