Have you ever made a mistake in WordPress and wished you could just ctrl-z it away? Or sometimes things go wrong when you’re writing a post – your browser crashes, your whole computer freezes, or you change or delete part of a post and want to get it back. Thankfully WordPress does have a solution for that: post revisions.
WordPress post revisions offers you an easy way to go back to a previous version of a post or page so you can quickly fix mistakes or glitches.
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How does it work?
When you’re writing a post or page WordPress temporarily saves a draft – called an auto-save – around every 60 seconds. Each new auto-save replaces the previous version.
And each time you click the save, update or publish button, WordPress saves a post revision. But unlike auto-saves, these are permanently saved in your site’s database.
You can access and browse through these revisions from the post/page edit screen and use them to revert back to a previous version of your page or post. So as well as fixing mistakes, you can also use post revisions to see how your post or page has changed over time. That’s especially handy if you have multiple people editing your site.
You might also like: How to use the WordPress Block Editor
How to use WordPress revisions
In the Block Editor
If you’re using the Block Editor, you’ll find your revisions in the Document options panel on the right of your screen.
It shows you how many revisions your post has, and when you click on it you’re taken to the compare revisions screen.
You’ll see the latest version of your post and above that is a scrollbar so you can browse through previous versions. As you can see, the changes you made are highlighted in pink and green.
Once you’ve found the version you’d like to revert to, click the Restore This Revision button and WordPress will make that the current version of the post.
Don’t worry, the later version/s of your post aren’t lost when you do this. WordPress will store those as revisions so you can always change your mind again later.
In the Classic Editor
If you’re using the Classic Editor, head to the Publish panel at the right of the screen and you’ll see the number of revisions.
Click Browse and you’ll be taken to the compare revisions screen. After that, the rest of the process is the same.
And that’s it! WordPress post revisions is a super quick and easy way to manage the different versions of your content, whether that’s undoing a mistake or simply changing your mind about some changes you’ve made.
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