What are Revisions in WordPress?
As users of WordPress, the value of the ‘revisions’ feature might not be immediately apparent. However, its importance can’t be overstated.
Essentially, this feature provides a form of insurance, offering peace of mind to content creators who can rest easy knowing that they have multiple versions of their posts and pages saved.
The ‘revisions’ function is a built-in feature in WordPress, preserving multiple iterations of your posts and pages. The revisions screen displays the evolution of a post over time, enabling you to revoke any changes made mistakenly.
Perhaps you’ve experienced a moment of regret after erasing a paragraph or sentence from your post. The revisions feature allows you to go back and retrieve the discarded content.
Additionally, for teams, this tool proves beneficial as it helps track the contributions of multiple authors. By viewing the revisions, one can understand who made what changes to an article.
Viewing Revisions in WordPress
Each time you save, update, or publish a post or page, WordPress crafts a new revision, abstaining from overwriting the existing version.
To identify the number of revisions made, look under the ‘Document’ panel on the post or page edit screen. Keep in mind, however, that revisions won’t be visible until you have at least two distinct versions of the post.
Should you still be using the old classic editor and not have upgraded your WordPress to Gutenberg, the revisions can be found in the publish meta box on the right panel of the post or page edit screen.
Regardless of the editor in use, the operation of post revisions remains the same.
To peruse the revisions, you simply click the ‘Browse’ link. The post revisions screen then displays the most recent version of the post.
Any added content is highlighted in green on the right side of the screen, and content that was removed is highlighted in red on the left side of the screen.
Navigating Between Revisions
Details such as the user who implemented the changes and the timestamp of the alterations can be viewed at the top of the screen. To journey through earlier versions of the post, one can move the slider button on the scrollbar.
An additional functionality lets you compare two different revisions by selecting the ‘Compare any two revisions’ box situated at the top right of your screen.
Restoring a Revision in WordPress
At the top of the screen, a button labeled ‘Restore This Revision’ is present. On pressing this button, the selected revision supplants the current version, redirecting you back to the WordPress editor, where you can then save the restored version as a draft.
Notably, choosing to restore an earlier revision doesn’t erase the most recent version of your post. Instead, the restored version is saved as a new revision.
If you opt not to restore the revision, you simply click on the ‘Return to editor’ link near the top of the screen.
Distinguishing Revisions from Autosave
An understanding of the difference between revisions and autosave is critical. Manual saves or updates to a post or page result in the storage of a new revision.
However, WordPress also automatically saves a temporary revision every 60 seconds – this feature is known as autosave.
The autosave feature becomes handy in times of unexpected interruptions, such as a browser crash during the writing process. The latest draft can be restored from the autosave.
Unlike other revisions, autosave only stores one version, which can be identified easily on the revision page due to its label and red text.
Managing Revisions in WordPress
By default, WordPress stores a comprehensive copy of every revision. To conserve space in your WordPress database, you can limit the number of revisions WordPress retains for each post and page and delete old revisions.