Functionality to restore backups back to the service
It would be nice if there is an option to restore the file back to the service e.g. I ould like to restore a google doc back into my account then I can just click restore in my backup , and it goes back into the google docs account.. Similarly there can also be an option to restore emails. This can probably also be used to shift emails from one account to another by specifying a different account to restore the emails to.
anonymous
shared this idea
This varies depending on service. We can’t pre-date tweets, for instance, so we can never really restore them. But we could push some data back to some services. We have some of this on our 6 month roadmap.
13 comments
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AdminKristin Dziadul
(Admin, Backupify)
commented
Mark - yes we know that ultimately bulk restore needs to be in place. The problem with this is API limitations among services which may prohibit how much data we can push back into a given service. If needed, we can do this for you manually but know that we are working with Google Apps to get the option available.
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Mark Tatge
commented
Sure, fine to be able to restore a single message - but what if you need to restore the entire mailbox. Doesn't look like this service has the ability to do that for either calendar, mail or contacts. No clear how you would do this unless you do it for each item.
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AdminKristin Dziadul
(Admin, Backupify)
commented
Leo - we do have restore for Gmail. When you go into your archives, you can restore any email message right back to the server. Here's a video to demo how this works: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5C4PVmkJKsk
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Leo
commented
At least for Google Mail Service, This would be a great plus !!!
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Damian Bere
commented
Recover & Restore are the primary purposes of Backup, yet this seems to be mostly lacking in backupify - the only output I've seen so far is a rather inaccessible and (sorry) ugly PDF.
At the very least the recovery part should be provided by backupify as a machine readable format (e.g. XML) and a human readable format (e.g. HTML), that also allows for attachments (blobs essentially). So I would expect a nicely packaged zip file that contained a machine readable XML file describing the separate attachment files (e.g. jpgs etc) as relative links and including content that is sensible to store in the XML - e.g. the tweets, updates, profile info, file lists, links, etc. Then either XSL or even pre-generated HTML page that presents this in a nice pretty (and still accessible) way for the less technical of users, whilst leaving those that wish to use the data systematically to play with the XML file in any way they wish.
As for the restore, it is understandable that not all services are that supportive of this at the moment, but having a few options would be nice - e.g. if you lose your twitter account (password/accidental deletion/etc) and create a new one, it would be nice to be able to _choose_ to publish all your old tweets back out for historical purposes (albeit with the wrong time and date and on this new account) _then_ restore all the people you follow and possibly even give the option to DM your old followers to let them know of your new account. This is just as realistic a scenario as restoring to your current account because twitter lost your data irrecoverably (maybe even more realistic).
Additionally, I would think it beneficial if you canonicalise the data in the backup to allow you to restore to a completely different service - e.g. identi.ca, google.me (if there ever is such a thing), picassa, linkedin/plaxo, etc. Which is another great use case example.
I haven't been able to see what the google apps restore/recovery features are like as it is still processing the archive, but I hope it is better than the social media services.
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AdminKristin Dziadul
(Admin, Backupify)
commented
@carlwatts - Yesterday we actually just announced a one-click restore feature for all Google Apps (Gmail, Docs, etc.) Check it out: backupify.com/launch/googleapps.
For some other services like Twitter and Facebook, restore is not possible, and here is why: http://bit.ly/ijM1iz
As we are able to restore more and more services, we'll be announcing them and posting the new availability to our blog so stay tuned!
Kristin
Backupify -
carlwatts
commented
how can I get the data out of the back up file. For example if I posted 100 times today, is it possible to get a record of those posts without all additional data. ie @Poet_Carl_Watts have a great day. If I need to recover, I want that message. is that possible? Have a great day.
Carl
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regalo box
commented
Definitly super important, without it this service is useless
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Steven Mirabito
commented
Yes! This would be a very helpful feature.
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DianneC commented
This is very important for my Wordpress site. I use Backupify to back up my site and database but I don't know how to restore it if I have to. The only other service I found is too expensive. Do you have any time frame for providing for a restore procedure?
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mattyboi35
commented
yea this is really important as if a site really did lose my data it would take forever to download files and upload them to my account and if we accidently delete it would be really useful for that and make it a quicker and more popular company / service
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Bryan deSilva
commented
I agree this is important. We should able be able to restore it to a different account in case the original was hosed and breached in some way.
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Riot Gear commented
It's a great idea. I mean that's what backing up is all about, so that you can restore your data if you lose something. I believe this restoration service is a must for a site like this. Please include it ASAP.
