{"id":735,"date":"2021-05-27T18:30:11","date_gmt":"2021-05-27T18:30:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/localwp.com\/?post_type=help&#038;p=735"},"modified":"2026-06-03T12:46:33","modified_gmt":"2026-06-03T12:46:33","slug":"manually-restore-a-cloud-backup-with-restic","status":"publish","type":"help","link":"https:\/\/localwp.com\/help-docs\/troubleshooting\/manually-restore-a-cloud-backup-with-restic\/","title":{"rendered":"Manually Restore a Cloud Backup with Restic"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/localwp.com\/add-ons\/cloud-backups\/\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Cloud Backups<\/span><\/a> <\/strong>makes use of&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/restic.net\/\"><strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Restic<\/span><\/strong><\/a>&nbsp;to create and manage the backups for a site. One of the main features of Restic is that it creates incremental backups which mean that only files that have changed since the last backup are uploaded and saved to the cloud. As a result, less space is used on your cloud provider, and less time is wasted waiting for data to upload!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:20px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n<div id=\"help-step-block_190fee7512ae7e049d9bbb61841e2f67\" class=\"help-note-container help-type-note\">\n\t<div class=\"help-icon\">\n\t\t<svg viewBox=\"0 0 512 512\" fill=\"currentColor\"><path fill=\"currentColor\" d=\"M256 512a256 256 0 1 1 0-512 256 256 0 1 1 0 512zm0-464a208 208 0 1 0 0 416 208 208 0 1 0 0-416zm70.7 121.9c7.8-10.7 22.8-13.1 33.5-5.3 10.7 7.8 13.1 22.8 5.3 33.5L243.4 366.1c-4.1 5.7-10.5 9.3-17.5 9.8-7 .5-13.9-2-18.8-6.9l-55.9-55.9c-9.4-9.4-9.4-24.6 0-33.9s24.6-9.4 33.9 0l36 36 105.6-145.2z\"><\/path><\/svg>\t<\/div>\n    <div class=\"help-text\">\n\t\t<p>This process is focused on manually restoring a backup from your cloud provider. Only follow the instructions below if you are unable to restore a site using the built-in restore process of the Local Cloud Backups add-on.<\/p>\n<p>If you\u2019re looking for more general information on using the <a href=\"https:\/\/localwp.com\/help-docs\/local-features\/cloud-backups\/\" target=\"_blank\">Cloud Backups add-on, see this help doc<\/a>.<\/p>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:20px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-group help-doc-toc\"><div class=\"wp-block-group__inner-container is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Table of Contents:<\/p>\n\n\n<nav aria-label=\"Table of Contents\" class=\"wp-block-table-of-contents\"><ol><li><a class=\"wp-block-table-of-contents__entry\" href=\"#org63289b2\">Install Restic<\/a><\/li><li><a class=\"wp-block-table-of-contents__entry\" href=\"#org5338aaa\">Download the Restic Repo<\/a><\/li><li><a class=\"wp-block-table-of-contents__entry\" href=\"#org3511b05\">Find the Restic Repo Password<\/a><\/li><li><a class=\"wp-block-table-of-contents__entry\" href=\"#orgf281175\">Work with the Restic Repo to Restore a Snapshot<\/a><\/li><li><a class=\"wp-block-table-of-contents__entry\" href=\"#orgf187a15\">Import into Local<\/a><\/li><\/ol><\/nav>\n\n\n<div style=\"height:20px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:20px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So why don&#8217;t all backup tools make use of incremental backups? The main drawback to Restic (and incremental backups in general) is that more work is required to view and restore individual backups.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Using Local&#8217;s Cloud Backups add-on is the easiest way to work with backups for your Local site, but if for some reason something, everything breaks and you can&#8217;t use Local, you can still manually access and restore the site backups using Restic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:20px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We&#8217;ll go into more detail, but the general process for manually restoring a backup looks like:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Install Restic.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Download the Restic repo from your cloud provider.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Use the &#8220;Manual Recovery&#8221; password from your Local account to access and work with the Restic repo.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Restore a specific snapshot.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Optional: Import the backup into Local.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:40px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"org63289b2\" class=\"wp-block-heading has-text-color\" style=\"color:#000000\"><strong>Install Restic<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Restic isn&#8217;t a Local-specific tool and is available for many different systems. You can install Restic by following the <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/restic.net\/#installation\" target=\"_blank\"><strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">instructions for your specific system<\/span><\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">To verify you have everything installed, open a terminal and try running the <code>restic<\/code> command. You should see more information about working with Restic!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:20px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image img-card is-style-drop-shadow\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-large is-resized\"><a href=\"https:\/\/localwp.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/cloud-backups-manual-restore-verify-restic-installed.png\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"711\" src=\"https:\/\/localwp.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/cloud-backups-manual-restore-verify-restic-installed-1024x711.png\" alt=\"Screenshot of a terminal window after executing the restic command.\" class=\"wp-image-754\" style=\"width:512px;height:356px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/localwp.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/cloud-backups-manual-restore-verify-restic-installed-1024x711.png 1024w, https:\/\/localwp.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/cloud-backups-manual-restore-verify-restic-installed-300x208.png 300w, https:\/\/localwp.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/cloud-backups-manual-restore-verify-restic-installed-768x533.png 768w, https:\/\/localwp.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/cloud-backups-manual-restore-verify-restic-installed.png 1460w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<div style=\"height:40px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"org5338aaa\" class=\"wp-block-heading has-text-color\" style=\"color:#000000\"><strong>Download the Restic Repo<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If you haven&#8217;t used Restic before, it&#8217;s good to learn a few terms. Each individual backup is called a&nbsp;<strong>snapshot<\/strong>. All of the snapshots for a site are stored within a folder called a&nbsp;<strong>restic repo<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">When using the Cloud Backups add-on, each site will create a new folder within the&nbsp;<code>LocalBackups<\/code>&nbsp;folder of your Cloud Provider.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Each of these folders is a restic repo, and is named with a unique hash that looks something like&nbsp;<code>bec9b8c9-8149-462b-a175-471c4a5635ae<\/code>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:20px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image is-style-default img-card\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-large is-resized\"><a href=\"https:\/\/localwp.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/cloud-backups-localbackups-folder-on-google-drive.png\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"765\" src=\"https:\/\/localwp.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/cloud-backups-localbackups-folder-on-google-drive-1024x765.png\" alt=\"A screenshot of the LocalBackups folder within Google Drive showing two restic repos.\" class=\"wp-image-755\" style=\"width:768px;height:574px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/localwp.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/cloud-backups-localbackups-folder-on-google-drive-1024x765.png 1024w, https:\/\/localwp.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/cloud-backups-localbackups-folder-on-google-drive-300x224.png 300w, https:\/\/localwp.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/cloud-backups-localbackups-folder-on-google-drive-768x574.png 768w, https:\/\/localwp.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/cloud-backups-localbackups-folder-on-google-drive-1536x1148.png 1536w, https:\/\/localwp.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/cloud-backups-localbackups-folder-on-google-drive-2048x1530.png 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">The LocalBackups folder in Google Drive with two Restic repos inside.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<div style=\"height:20px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There&#8217;s no need to download the entire <code>LocalBackups<\/code> folder, you only need to download the Restic repo for the site you want to restore. You&#8217;ll likely need to unzip this file someplace on your machine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:20px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n<div id=\"help-step-block_d1377ec39a171d6b44d9f6dc9894bb32\" class=\"help-note-container help-type-note\">\n\t<div class=\"help-icon\">\n\t\t<svg viewBox=\"0 0 512 512\" fill=\"currentColor\"><path fill=\"currentColor\" d=\"M256 512a256 256 0 1 1 0-512 256 256 0 1 1 0 512zm0-464a208 208 0 1 0 0 416 208 208 0 1 0 0-416zm70.7 121.9c7.8-10.7 22.8-13.1 33.5-5.3 10.7 7.8 13.1 22.8 5.3 33.5L243.4 366.1c-4.1 5.7-10.5 9.3-17.5 9.8-7 .5-13.9-2-18.8-6.9l-55.9-55.9c-9.4-9.4-9.4-24.6 0-33.9s24.6-9.4 33.9 0l36 36 105.6-145.2z\"><\/path><\/svg>\t<\/div>\n    <div class=\"help-text\">\n\t\t<p><!-- wp:paragraph --><\/p>\n<p>You can do most of these steps wherever you&#8217;d like on your computer. To make things easier to follow within this help doc, I recommend creating a folder named <code>manual-restore<\/code> on your desktop to keep everything organized.<\/p>\n<p><!-- \/wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --><\/p>\n<p>Within this folder, create a folder named <code>site<\/code> where individual snapshots will be restored. Next, extract the Restic repo into a folder of its own. If you&#8217;re following these guidelines, your folder structure should look something like this:<\/p>\n<p><!-- \/wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:preformatted --><\/p>\n<pre id=\"org52d7dd7\" class=\"wp-block-preformatted\">~\/Desktop\/manual-restore\/\r\n \u251c bec9b8c9-8149-462b-a175-471c4a5635ae  &lt;- The restic repo\r\n \u2514 site                                  &lt;- Restored snapshots<\/pre>\n<p><!-- \/wp:preformatted --><\/p>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:40px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"org3511b05\" class=\"wp-block-heading has-text-color\" style=\"color:#000000\"><strong>Find the Restic Repo Password<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">One additional feature of Restic is that the Restic Repo is protected with a password. Your Local Account created this password for you when the cloud provider was connected. Navigate to the &#8220;Manual recovery password&#8221; setting on the &#8220;Cloud Backups&#8221; page of your Local Account.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:20px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image img-card is-style-drop-shadow\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-large is-resized\"><a href=\"https:\/\/localwp.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/cloud-backups-manual-backup-find-password.png\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"570\" src=\"https:\/\/localwp.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/cloud-backups-manual-backup-find-password-1024x570.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-744\" style=\"width:768px;height:428px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/localwp.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/cloud-backups-manual-backup-find-password-1024x570.png 1024w, https:\/\/localwp.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/cloud-backups-manual-backup-find-password-300x167.png 300w, https:\/\/localwp.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/cloud-backups-manual-backup-find-password-768x428.png 768w, https:\/\/localwp.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/cloud-backups-manual-backup-find-password-1536x855.png 1536w, https:\/\/localwp.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/cloud-backups-manual-backup-find-password-2048x1141.png 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<div style=\"height:40px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"orgf281175\" class=\"wp-block-heading has-text-color\" style=\"color:#000000\"><strong>Work with the Restic Repo to Restore a Snapshot<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">With the Restic Repo downloaded and your password ready, you now have everything you need to view snapshots of the site as well as restore a specific ones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Using the folder examples from above, open a terminal and navigate to the&nbsp;<code>~\/Desktop\/manual-restore<\/code>&nbsp;folder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">From there, we can list the snapshots within the restic repo by running this command:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<pre class=\"wp-block-syntaxhighlighter-code\">restic -r bec9b8c9-8149-462b-a175-471c4a5635ae snapshots<\/pre>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Restoring a snapshot is easy by using the snapshot id along with the&nbsp;<code>--target<\/code> parameter&nbsp;for where you want the snapshot restored to. In this example, we use the <code>site<\/code> folder we created earlier:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<pre class=\"wp-block-syntaxhighlighter-code\">restic -r bec9b8c9-8149-462b-a175-471c4a5635ae restore aabbccdd --target site<\/pre>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:20px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image img-card\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-large is-resized\"><a href=\"https:\/\/localwp.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/cloud-backups-manual-restore-view-snapshots.png\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"628\" src=\"https:\/\/localwp.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/cloud-backups-manual-restore-view-snapshots-1024x628.png\" alt=\"Screenshot of a terminal used to unzip a restic repo and view the snapshots within the repo.\" class=\"wp-image-740\" style=\"width:768px;height:471px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/localwp.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/cloud-backups-manual-restore-view-snapshots-1024x628.png 1024w, https:\/\/localwp.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/cloud-backups-manual-restore-view-snapshots-300x184.png 300w, https:\/\/localwp.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/cloud-backups-manual-restore-view-snapshots-768x471.png 768w, https:\/\/localwp.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/cloud-backups-manual-restore-view-snapshots-1536x942.png 1536w, https:\/\/localwp.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/cloud-backups-manual-restore-view-snapshots-2048x1256.png 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Unzipping and viewing the snapshots in a Restic Repo.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<div style=\"height:20px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image img-card\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-large is-resized\"><a href=\"https:\/\/localwp.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/cloud-backups-manual-restore-restore-snapshot.png\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"628\" src=\"https:\/\/localwp.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/cloud-backups-manual-restore-restore-snapshot-1024x628.png\" alt=\"Snapshot showing a terminal to view snapshots in a restic repo and restore an individual snapshot.\" class=\"wp-image-741\" style=\"width:768px;height:471px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/localwp.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/cloud-backups-manual-restore-restore-snapshot-1024x628.png 1024w, https:\/\/localwp.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/cloud-backups-manual-restore-restore-snapshot-300x184.png 300w, https:\/\/localwp.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/cloud-backups-manual-restore-restore-snapshot-768x471.png 768w, https:\/\/localwp.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/cloud-backups-manual-restore-restore-snapshot-1536x942.png 1536w, https:\/\/localwp.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/cloud-backups-manual-restore-restore-snapshot-2048x1256.png 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Viewing snapshots in a Restic Repo and using the snapshot id to restore a specific snapshot.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<div style=\"height:40px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"orgf187a15\" class=\"wp-block-heading has-text-color\" style=\"color:#000000\"><strong>Import into Local<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">After working through the above steps, you should have everything you need within the <code>site<\/code> folder to restore your local site! The easiest way to import this snapshot into Local is to zip up the <code>site<\/code> folder and drag-and-drop it onto Local. See <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/localwp.com\/help-docs\/how-to-import-a-wordpress-site-into-local\/\" target=\"_blank\"><strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">this help doc<\/span><\/strong><\/a> for a visual walkthrough of that process!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:40px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-buttons is-content-justification-center is-layout-flex wp-container-core-buttons-is-layout-fe48e5de wp-block-buttons-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-button\"><a class=\"wp-block-button__link wp-element-button\" href=\"https:\/\/community.localwp.com\/c\/support\/5\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Get Community Support<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:100px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Cloud Backups makes use of&nbsp;Restic&nbsp;to create and manage the backups for a site. One of the main features of Restic is that it creates incremental backups which mean that only files that have changed since the last backup are uploaded and saved to the cloud. As a result, less space is used on your cloud&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"parent":349,"menu_order":10,"template":"","tags":[28],"helpcategories":[4],"class_list":["post-735","help","type-help","status-publish","hentry","tag-add-ons","helpcategories-troubleshooting"],"acf":{"help_keywords":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/localwp.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/help-doc\/735","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/localwp.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/help-doc"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/localwp.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/help"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/localwp.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/49"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/localwp.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/help-doc\/735\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/localwp.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/help-doc\/349"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/localwp.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/localwp.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=735"},{"taxonomy":"helpcategories","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/localwp.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/helpcategories?post=735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}