Each time you click ‘Save Draft’ or ‘Update’ in the Publish meta box, a revision is saved. Revisions allow you to roll back to an earlier version of your post or page if needed. Undo for WordPress!
WordPress will also create an autosave every minute. So if you lose your power, the browser crashes or you lose internet connection on reconnection you may be asked if you want to restore to a more recent version than last manually saved. There is only one autosave for any given post or page. In the lower right hand corner of the editor, you’ll see a notification of when the entry was last saved to the database.
Once you’ve made your first revision, in the Publish meta box you will see Revisions appear (underneath Visibility), noting the number of revisions available. Click the Browse link.
Note: if you scroll down you can also find Revisions beneath the post/page editor. If Revisions are not visible here, click on Screen Options and tick the Revisions box.
Comparing Revisions
To view your revisions, use the slider handle along the bar at the top or use the ‘Previous’ and ‘Next’ buttons. The changes will be highlighted in pink (older version) and green (newer version).
By default, when you view a revision it will display a comparison with the revision immediately before it. If you want to compare two particular revisions side by side, (for example, if you’d like to find the difference between the original draft and a more recent version), click the box top right marked ‘Compare any two revisions’. Place the slider handles along the bar as required.
Restoring Revisions
To restore a previous version of a post or page, scroll to the desired revision (in green – revision author and date/time is displayed to the left of the blue restore button). Click on the Restore This Revision (or Restore This Autosave) button.
Once complete and to return to your post or page, click on the ‘Return to post editor’ link, top left.
Who can see revisions?
Administrators and editors can see all revisions for posts and pages. Authors can see revisions for any post they have written themselves (which are the only posts they’re able to view). Contributors cannot see revisions at all.
