Something has gone wrong with your website and you need to go back to an earlier version.
Maybe a plugin update broke the layout. Maybe a page was accidentally deleted. Maybe the site is showing errors you did not expect and you just want to go back to yesterday, when everything was working fine.
The good news is that you do not need technical skills or outside help to do this. If your website is hosted with Eazyhosting, your hosting includes Timeline Backups — a tool in your Eazyhosting Control Panel that lets you restore your site to a previous point without touching FTP, databases, or code.
This guide shows you exactly how.
Before you restore: two things worth knowing
Your backups are already there. You do not need to have set anything up in advance. Timeline Backups runs automatically in the background, keeping copies of your website files and database as they were at different points in recent history.
A restore will overwrite what is there now. If you restore your full site to yesterday's backup, everything on your site will go back to yesterday. Any changes made after that point will be lost. If in doubt, restore only the part that changed — more on that below.
Step 1: Log in to your Eazyhosting Control Panel
Go to your Eazyhosting Control Panel and sign in with your account details.
If you are not sure where to find this, it is the same place you manage your domain, email, and hosting settings.
Step 2: Open Timeline Backups
Once you are logged in, look for Timeline Backups in your panel. This is the section where your automatic backups are stored.
You will see a list of restore points — these are the snapshots of your site taken at different dates and times. The list usually shows at least the past two to four weeks.
Step 3: Choose what to restore
This is the most important decision. You can restore:
Your entire website — files and database together. Use this when the site is seriously broken and you want to go back to a clean working state. This is the most reliable option after a bad update or a significant error.
Files only — the pages, images, themes, and plugin files that make up your site. Use this if something was accidentally deleted or a file was changed and you need the old version back.
Database only — the content layer of your site: your posts, pages, settings, and form data. Use this if your site files look fine but the content has changed or disappeared.
For most situations where something broke after an update, restoring the full website is the safest choice.
Step 4: Select a restore point
Find a backup from before the problem started.
If a plugin update broke your site this morning, choose a restore point from yesterday or earlier this week. The list is usually shown with the most recent backup at the top.
If you are not sure exactly when the problem started, go back to a point you know the site was working well — even if that means losing a few recent changes. It is better to restore to something reliable than to guess at a date that might still have the problem in it.
Step 5: Start the restore
Click Restore for the restore point you have selected.
You may be asked to confirm before the process begins. Read the confirmation carefully — it will tell you exactly what will be overwritten.
The restore usually takes a few minutes. Do not close the browser tab while it is running. When it finishes, you will see a confirmation.
Step 6: Check your website
Once the restore is complete, visit your website as a visitor would — not just the admin dashboard.
Check:
- Does the homepage load correctly?
- Do the main pages look as expected?
- If you have a contact form, does it display properly?
- If you use WooCommerce or a booking system, does it load without errors?
If you restored a WordPress site, also check your admin dashboard and clear any caching your site uses.
When a restore may not fully solve the problem
A restore will get your website back to how it was at a specific point in time. But there are a few situations where more is needed:
If the problem was already present in the backup. If your issue started more than a few weeks ago, the available restore points may all include the problem. In this case, restoring will not help and you will need to investigate the underlying cause.
If your site is still broken after restoring. This sometimes happens if only files were restored but the database was not, or vice versa. Try restoring the full website — both files and database together — and check again.
If you have received a malware warning. A restore can remove malicious files, but it is worth having the site checked after restoring to confirm the source of the problem has been addressed. Contact us and we can take a look.
When to ask for help
If you have tried restoring and the site is still not right, or if you are not confident which restore point to choose, get in touch. We can check the backup history, confirm what the restore will affect, and carry it out for you if needed.
A restore is a small thing to us. To your business, getting the site back up is the priority — and that is what we are here for.
