In some cases, you might not want to restore the entire content tree but only the parts that you need. Partial restore is a feature that allows for restoring specific parts of your content instead of restoring everything.
You can use Partial Restore on:
Empty environments - Requires Umbraco Deploy 3.3+.
This feature is only available with Umbraco Deploy 3.3+
In this scenario, you've cloned down your Cloud environment to your local machine or set up a new Cloud environment. In both cases, the new environment will have an empty Content section as well as an empty Media section.
This feature will also restore all dependencies of the selected content. For example, when you restore a content node that references media items as well as other content nodes, these will all be restored, including any parent nodes that these nodes depend on.
To partially restore the parts you need:
Go to the Content section of the Umbraco backoffice on your new environment (local or Cloud).
Right-click the Content tree or click the three dots and select Do something else.
Choose Partial Restore
Select the environment that you would like to restore the content from.
Click Select content to restore and a dialog with a preview of the content tree from the environment you selected opens.
Select the content node you would like to restore.
Enable Including all items below if you want to restore any child nodes below the selected node.
Click Restore.
Once the restore is completed, right-click the Content tree and select Reload.
If you select a content node deeper down the tree, all the parents above it, required for the node to exist, will be restored as well.
Partial Restores on empty environments are especially helpful when you have a large amount of content and media and do not necessarily need it all for the task you need to do. Instead of having to restore everything which could potentially take a long time, doing a partial restore can be used to shorten the waiting time by only restoring the parts you need. This will ensure that you can quickly get on your way with the task at hand.
It is also possible to use the Partial Restore feature in environments where you already have content in the Content tree.
Imagine that you are working with your Umbraco Cloud project locally. One of your content editors updates a section in the content tree on the Live environment. You would like to see how this updated content looks with the new code you are working on. To partially restore the updated content node, do the following:
Go to the Content section of your Umbraco backoffice.
Right-click the content node which you know contains updates.
Choose Partial Restore
Select the environment that you would like to restore the content from.
Enable Including all items below if you want to restore any child nodes below the selected node.
Click Restore.
Once the restore is completed, right-click the Content tree and select Reload.
When you have content on your Cloud environment and you clone down your Umbraco Cloud project to your local machine, you will need to do an extra step, to see your content locally. You will also need to use the restore option when setting up new Umbraco Cloud environments.
The restore option comes in handy when you have content editors creating content on the Live or Staging environments. You will be able to restore and work with that content in your Development and local environments.
You can restore the content in the following ways:
The first time you run your project locally you will have the option to restore your content and media before going to the Umbraco Backoffice.
This will restore all the content nodes and any media dependencies.
When your site is done spinning up, click the green Restore button to restore all the content nodes and media files.
Wait till the process completes. This might take a while depending on the amount of content and media you have on your project.
When it's completed, select Open Umbraco to go to the Backoffice.
You will now see all your content and media in the Umbraco Backoffice.
Use this option when setting up new Cloud environments. The Workspace restore option restores all the entities (content, media, forms, datasources, and prevalue sources from Umbraco Forms) of a workspace via the Backoffice.
Log in to the Umbraco Backoffice in the environment you want to restore the content and media.
Click ... and select Do something else or Right-click the Content Tree in the Content section.
Choose Workspace Restore.
Select the environment from the Restore this workspace from dropdown.
To ensure the restore succeeds, make sure that your environments have the same metadata and structure files.
Click Restore from <environment_name> and wait till the process completes. This might take a while depending on the amount of content and media you have on your project.
Once the content restore is completed, you will get a notification with a timestamp. Click Okay to complete the process.
Right-click the Content tree and choose Reload to see your content in the tree.
If any of your content nodes depends on media items, these will also be restored in the process.
To see the media, go to the Media section and reload the tree.
The Tree restore option restores all the entities available for the selected tree in that section. It's available in the Content, Media, Members, Forms (root node of Forms, Datasources, and Prevalue sources), or Translation (Dictionary menu if configured) sections. Using Tree Restore, you can, for example, restore all your content only. This will restore any media that’s referenced in that content, but it won’t attempt to restore the full media library.
Log in to the Umbraco Backoffice in the environment you want to restore the tree.
Click ... and select Do something else or Right-click the Content Tree in the Content section.
Choose Tree Restore.
Select the environment from the Restore this tree from dropdown.
To ensure the restore succeeds, make sure that your environments have the same metadata and structure files.
Click Restore from <environment_name> and wait till the process completes. This might take a while depending on the amount of content and media you have on your project.
Once the content restore is completed, you will get a notification with a timestamp. Click Okay to complete the process.
Right-click the Content tree and choose Reload to see your content in the tree.
Using the Partial Restore option, you can restore only a single node from a tree (optionally with descendants) that you need to work with.
