We’re all human. We all make mistakes. Even if we proofread and check our work, posts and pages with mistakes can still go live on WordPress.
Don’t worry, though! These mistakes, as long as someone finds them, don’t have to be permanent.
You can use the tips we’re about to share to undo your mistakes in WordPress… quickly. Read on to find out how.
Ctrl+Z
Whether you’re using the WordPress classic editor or the Gutenberg editor, you can use Ctrl + Z on Windows or Cmd + Z on macOS to undo changes.
This is by far the simplest way to do a quick undo action while you’re working on your site’s content!
Simply press the Ctrl and Z or Cmd and Z keys on the keyboard together, and you will see that the last few things you did in the editor are removed as if they never happened.
Revisions In Gutenberg Editor
In some cases, a simple, quick undo might not be able to solve your problem.
Or you have to hit it way too many times to get back to the version of your text that you want, erasing valuable work in the process.
That’s where revisions come into play.
To access the revisions in WordPress, go to the “Revisions” tab in the sidebar of the Gutenberg editor.
You can revert changes by clicking on the old version of the content.
WordPress highlights the text to show you all modifications made to your post. If you want to revert to the previous version, click Restore this revision.
Revisions In The Classic Editor
If you are using the classic editor, you can also make revisions and undo your changes in the editor. To do this, you need to follow these steps:
Log in to your WordPress dashboard and open any article where modifications have been done.
On the left-hand side, you’ll see an option called “Revisions.” Click on it to activate the option.
Now, go back to the screen options and select “Screen Options” under “General Settings.”
In the “Screen Options” section, you’ll find the “Revisions” button. Click on it to revert the changes.
After clicking on it, you’ll be asked to confirm. Confirm if you want to revert the changes or not.
Choose a Revision To Restore
You can use the slider at the top to select different revisions below that; WordPress will compare your current revision with the previous one.
A red background indicates that some text was deleted, while a blue background indicates that some text has been added.
You can use the slider to compare any two revisions.
There are two different methods for reverting changes in WordPress.
You can restore a deleted revision by copying and pasting its content.
You can also restore a previous version of your document by clicking the Restore This Version button.
Don’t worry if you decide to revert to an earlier version of your content.
You can always go into the same revision interface to restore the previous version.
When you use the “Restore this Version” button, WordPress does not delete the other versions.
Instead, it simply creates a new revision with the content you’ve restored.
WordPress Drafts vs. Autosave
WordPress automatically saves draft versions of your posts for you so that you don’t lose all of your work if the power goes down or your laptop runs out of battery juice.
Autosave saves a draft of your post every minute. At any moment of time, only 1 autosave of your post exists for you. If you want to have multiple versions of your draft post, you’ll need to hit “Save draft.”
When you click on “Save draft” manually, WordPress saves draft posts in the post’s revisions. Unlike autosaves, where one overwrites the other, you can have as many revisions as you want.
Limiting the Number of Revisions
We’ve covered how to restore your content after an accidental deletion.
Now let’s talk about why you shouldn’t feel tempted to hit the “Save button” manually all of the time—and why instead you should limit the number of revisions stored by WordPress.
Revisions are helpful features when it comes to how you can undo changes in WordPress.
However, if you have an old website with lots and lots of revisions for each and every post, then you may want to consider deleting some of them.
This will delete any unpublished posts or pages that haven’t been published yet.
We recommend having a hard limit on the number of revisions that WordPress keeps, rather than letting it store so many revisions that you can’t deal with them all.
We recommend setting a maximum of 3-4 revisions. You can control the number of revisions for pages and posts with this plugin.
This will allow you to restore your work if there is an error or you accidentally change something.
However, it will also prevent you from storing too many versions of your content and wasting space.
How To Undo A Post Or Page Change With Revision History
When you publish your blog, you’ll see a box pop up asking if you want to save the post. You can either say yes or no.
If you say yes, then the post will be saved as a new revision each time you hit save.
If you say no, then the post won’t be saved as a new version until you hit save again.
This is disabled by default at WordPress.com because it can cause some serious database issues over time on large sites.
Bringing Back Deleted Pages In WordPress?
You can restore items that were trashed, but once they’re deleted from the trash can, they’re gone forever. User privileges should be carefully given out.
If you want to make backups of your site, we recommend that you sign up for ManageWP. For $2/website/month, you get automatic hourly, daily, or weekly backups that you can easily restore.
What About Visual Builder Themes?
Any visual builder theme worth its salt, like Divi or Elementor, will have its way of undoing mistakes in content.
You’ll have to check the documentation for the specific editor to find out exactly how to do it in your chosen theme.
Conclusion
Undoing mistakes in WordPress is pretty easy! Hopefully, this guide has shown you a few useful ways to undo your mistakes!