Website Backups
Losing your website data is no joke, so it pays to have contingency plans in place to get your website back if the worst happens. To help you keep your website safe, Publii includes a backup and restore feature that lets you instantly save a copy of a Publii website into a compressed file, ready to be loaded back up later if needed.
Backing Up Your Website
To create a backup of your website, click on the Tools option in the main menu to view the available tools in Publii, then click on the Backups option at the top to go to the backups screen. Here you will see a list of available backups, which will of course be empty if you've yet to create your first. To make a new backup of your current website, click the Create backup button at the top-right of the section; a pop-up will open allowing you to enter a name for your backup; this defaults to a unique name with the format backup-date-time, but you can enter any name that you wish, then click OK. After a few moments your new backup will be created and added to the list.
Restoring Your Site
To restore an existing backup of your site, click on the Tools option in the main menu, then click on the Backups option to open the backups screen. In the list of available backups, find the one you wish to use, and click the Restore button to the right of the listing; a popup will appear asking for confirmation that you wish to restore from this backup. Double-check that the file you are restoring is correct, as once the process is started all files will be overwritten and the restore cannot be rolled back. Once ready, click OK if you wish to continue; the backup will be loaded and a confirmation message will appear once the website is restored.
Restoring Backups on a New Publii Installation
If you've switched to a new computer and want to restore your site backup to a new Publii installation, you can do so on the Create New Website screen. When opening Publii for the first time, you will automatically see this screen on startup. Instead of filling in the website name and other details, instead click on the Install From Backup tab at the top of the popup, next to the Create New Website text:
A new box will appear where you can drag and drop your backup file, or click on the Choose File button to open the file explorer to choose your file. Once the file is selected, a dialogue box will open where you can enter the site name; this will default to the original site name, but you can change it if you wish. Next, click on the Create Website button to restore your site; once the process is finished, the restored website will automatically be opened, ready to modify.
If you wish to restore a site from a backup into an existing Publii installation, you can access the Create New Website screen by clicking on the Down Arrow icon to the right of the Website Name at the top of the left-menu in the Publii app to open the list of sites, then clicking the Create New Website button at the top-right of the app.