Guide to restoring SharePoint page to previous version

With the ability to change your site on the go from anywhere — as well as the ability to have others do it too — it’s only so long before something goes wrong. Due to this, version control is more important than ever for collaboration platforms. Fortunately, SharePoint has a simple version control system implemented that allows users to restore their site (in its entirety) to be restored. 

Solution: 

1. Open your SharePoint site 
2. Open your SharePoint site’s contents 
3. Open Site Pages 
4. Right click the site page you wish to revert 
5. Select Version History 
6. Click dropdown arrow for the version you’d like to revert to 
7. Click restore 

This post aims to elaborate on how you can restore a SharePoint page to a prior version. Please note that to do so requires you to have had a prior version of the current page to revert back to. We’ll additionally be talking about what exactly version control is and how it’s useful. 

Quick links: 

• Restoring a SharePoint page to a previous version
• A brief introduction to version control
• End note

Restoring a SharePoint page to a previous version 

Step 1 – Navigate to your SharePoint site’s contents 

• Once you’ve got your SharePoint site open, click the cog icon in the top right and select Site contents from the dropdown it will produce. 

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Step 2 – Open Site Pages from your Site contents 

• Close to the bottom of your contents you’ll find Site Pages. Follow the link (it will likely open in a new window) 

Step 3 – Access your desired page’s version history 

• Right click on the page you wish to revert. This will produce a context menu, from which we may access Version history. 

Step 4 – Select restore from your intended version’s dropdown menu 

• When hovering over each version’s link you’ll notice a downwards arrow appearing by the links. Click it to open a dropdown menu. Click the Restore option. 

• You will be asked to confirm this choice by clicking OK 

Step 5 – Publish your changes 

• Changes won’t be made visitable to everyone else until you republish your restored site, officialise the changes. 

A brief introduction to version control and how it can be used to restore a SharePoint page.

What is version control 

Version control is the management of versions of a product or workpiece. This works by tracking every change made to the workpiece and logging it within a timeline, from which we can review each change- and revert back to previous versions if something goes wrong. 

Why should I use version control 

If you’ve had to follow our walkthrough, then you evidently need it. Regardless, using version control is useful for demonstrating project progress overtime, or potentially saving yourself from a future mistake. 

Where is version control used 

Version control is used just about everywhere in terms of digital content production. When writing, or even coding version control applications like GIT allow creators to track every change made to files within a directory, and revert back to old versions when required. Similarly, version control may be used with art tools in a more subtle way. Like allowing you to scroll through event history and revert to a version of the work prior to said events having occurred. 

End note 

Recap 

This time we’ve learnt to restore our SharePoint site pages to past versions via SharePoint’s version control mechanics. We’ve also learnt what version control is, why we should use version control and where version control is used (outside of SharePoint). 

Farewell 

As usual, this section is dedicated to thanking readers for their support. We’d be pleased to know you found this post useful and/or informative. If you have any more SharePoint related queries, please consult our related articles (listed below). However, if you have other queries, consider looking at the rest of the site. We’re frequently posting new stuff each week and may just have the guide or troubleshooting tips you need.

Our related articles: 

• How to unsync SharePoint folder from desktop – When a user uses the OneDrive sync client to synchronize a SharePoint Document library, the whole library of files and folders is transferred to the user’s PC. It is not, however, simply replicated. Between the user’s PC and SharePoint, a two-way relationship is formed. Any changes in one location are immediately reflected in the other. This is unwanted behaviour if you intend to merely copy. As such we’ll be showing you how to unsync SharePoint. 
• A guide to checking the size of a folder in SharePoint – SharePoint sites contain a lot of data. All of which takes up space. Due to this, the importance of tracking folder storage consumption is high. Despite this, not many know how to check a folder’s size. This post aims to change that. 
• SharePoint: can’t add site members: Causes and fixes – SharePoint servers as a collaborative document manager. As such, the collaboration-based functionality is about as important as the management functionality. Despite that, SharePoint may on occasion run into issues adding site members- in this blog we’ll be running through some causes and discussing fixes. 
• What is the simplest way to transfer files from Google Suite to SharePoint? – If you’ve decided on switching from the Google Suite to the Office 365 Suite, you may be a little baffled as to how to go about it. Fortunately for you, we’ve got a better method than re-downloading and uploading everything one-by-one. Have a read to find out more.