A same-day restore refers to reverting your data to an earlier point from within the same day, after changes or deletions—accidental or intentional. If you’ve experienced an unexpected issue, even if your data is in a broken state, running a manual backup is the key first step to ensuring Rewind can help you recover.
This guide will walk you through best practices, explain why manual backups are sometimes required, show you exactly what to do after a mistake, and help you choose the right restore option for your situation.
Why would I manually back up corrupted or incorrect data before a restore?
If your site is broken after installing an app, making a change, or deleting something by mistake, you might be thinking: “Why would I want to back up my site right now? Isn’t that just saving the mistake?”
Here’s why we ask you to do this:
- Rewind can only detect what needs to be restored if it sees every change since your last backup—including mistakes.
- Running a manual backup, even when things aren't working correctly, creates a record of the current state of your account.
- Without this backup, Rewind simply cannot “see” what’s new, broken, or missing. If you try to restore without it, nothing will change.
Think of it this way:
- Running a manual backup captures a snapshot of the data in your account at that moment.
- Rewind uses this snapshot to compare against previous backups, so it can accurately identify what data has changed and needs to be restored to an earlier state.
- A manual backup doesn’t replace or change any of your previous backups—it just adds another snapshot for Rewind to reference.
Why a manual backup might need to be completed
Rewind’s ability to restore data—whether it’s a single item or a group of items—depends entirely on its record of changes. Rewind does not see changes in real time. Instead, it tracks the state of your data only at the moment a backup runs, whether that backup is scheduled automatically or started manually by you.
Same-day restore after a manual backup
Same-day restore without a manual backup
Restoring from older versions
Before You Back Up: Make Sure It’s Needed
If you’re unsure whether a manual backup is necessary, the best first step is to check the time of your most recent backup. If the change you want to revert happened before the last backup, you're good to restore right away. If it happened after, running a manual backup will allow Rewind to detect the change and include it in the restore.
Here’s why running a manual backup might be crucial after a mistake:
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How Rewind tracks changes:
Every time a backup runs, Rewind compares what it sees now with what it saw at the last backup. It logs any changes or deletions for each item (like products, pages, customers, issues, etc.) only if it can detect a difference between the two backups. -
What happens if you don’t run a backup:
If you make changes, deletions, or mistakes after your last backup, and you don’t run a new backup, Rewind has no record that anything is different. It “thinks” your data hasn’t changed. So if you try to restore, nothing happens—because as far as Rewind knows, there’s nothing to fix. -
Why backing up after a mistake matters:
Even if your data is currently in a “bad” or unwanted state, running a manual backup lets Rewind log all the changes or deletions since the last backup. This is how Rewind learns which items were affected. When you restore, Rewind then has the evidence it needs to revert just those items, returning them to their previous state.
Why this may seem counterintuitive:
Many people worry about “backing up the mistake.” In fact, that’s the point—Rewind needs to “see” the problem so it knows what to fix. A manual backup doesn’t alter or overwrite any previous backup versions you already have. If you skip the manual backup and try to restore, the unwanted changes remain because Rewind has no record that anything is different.
Need more help?
If you have questions or need assistance, reach out to help@rewind.com or submit a request. We’re here to help!