How to partially restore content in Umbraco Deploy
In some cases you might not want to restore the entire content tree, but only the parts that you need. Partial restores is a feature that allows for restoring specific parts of your content instead of restoring everything.
You can use Partial Restore on
In this scenario you've cloned down your environment to your local machine or setup a new environment. In both cases the new environment will have an empty Content section as well as an empty Media section.
Be aware that this feature will also restore all dependencies on the selected content.
E.g. when you restore a content node which references media items as well as other content nodes, these will all be restored as well, including any parent nodes that these nodes depend on.
Follow these steps to perform a partial restore to get only the parts you need:
Go to the Content section of the Umbraco backoffice on your environment or locally.
Right-click the Content Tree, or click the three dots an select Do something else.
Choose Partial Restore.
Select the environment that you would like to restore content from.
Click "Select content to restore" - this will open a dialog with a preview of the content tree from the environment you selected.
Select the content node you would like to restore.
Decide whether you also want to restore any child nodes below the selected node.
Start the restore by clicking Restore.
To see the restored content, reload the content tree - right-click the Content tree to find this option.
Keep in mind 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 on environments where you already have content in the Content tree.
Imagine that you are working with your Umbraco project locally. One of your content editors updates a section in the content tree on the production environment. You would like to see how this updated content looks with the new code you are working on. Follow these steps to do a Partial Restore of the updated content node:
Go to the Content section of your local Umbraco backoffice
Right-click the content node which you know contains updates
Choose Partial Restore
Select the environment that you would like to restore content from
Decide whether you also want restore any child nodes under the selected node
Start the restore by clicking Restore
When the restore is done, reload the content tree to see the changes
How to restore content in Umbraco Deploy
When you have content on your environment and you clone down your Umbraco project to your local machine, you will need to do an extra step, in order to see your content locally.
The restore option also comes in really handy when you have content editors creating content on different environments. You will be able to restore and work with that content on your different environments and locally.
There are four options when it comes to restoring content.
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 content and media, plus any other entities configured for back-office transfer.
When your site is done spinning up, click the green Restore button - this will restore all content and media.
Wait till the process completes - this might take a while, depending on the amount of content and media you have on your Umbraco site.
When it's complete select Open Umbraco to go to the backoffice.
You will now see all your content and media in the Umbraco backoffice.
The second option for restoring your content and media is found in the Umbraco backoffice.
Go to the Umbraco backoffice on the environment you want to restore content and media to.
Click the three dots an select Do something else, or Right-click the Content Tree.
Choose Workspace restore... from the menu.
You will now have the option to restore content from any environment that's to the right of the current environment in the deployment workflow.
To ensure the restore will succeed, make sure that your environments have the same meta data and structure files.
Click Restore from .. and 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 done, right-click the Content tree again and choose Reload to see your content in the tree.
As well as content, media and any other entities configured for back-office transfer, will also be restored in the process.
To see the media, go to the Media section and Reload the tree.
The operation is triggered in the same way as when restoring everything, but instead the Tree restore... menu option should be selected.
For example, if triggered from the content tree, only content entities will be restored. This will also restore any media that’s referenced in that content, but it won’t attempt to restore the full media library, nor any other entities.
By using the Partial Restore option, you can make sure that you only restore the part of the content that you need to work with. You can either restore a single item, or include all the descendents of that item too.
