Rollback — Undo Any Import

Made a mistake? Imported the wrong file? Click Rollback. Every changed record is restored to its exact state before the import.

Why Rollback Matters

Bulk imports are scary because mistakes are big. You change 1,000 prices and realize 20 minutes later that you used the wrong column.

Most plugins have no undo. You have to restore from a database backup — which is slow, risky, and may lose other recent changes.

Our plugin takes a snapshot before every import. One click restores the snapshot. Nothing else on your site is affected.

How to Rollback

History page with Rollback actionEvery run in History shows a Rollback button in the Actions column — available for the configured retention window.

Option 1 — From the History Page

  1. Go to Webkul WC Addons → Advance Import Export → History
  2. Find the run you want to undo
  3. Click Rollback in the Actions column
  4. Confirm

A progress bar shows the rollback. Usually takes less time than the original import.

Option 2 — From the Run Details Page

  1. Click on a run in the History to open details
  2. Click Rollback at the top

Import Results step with Rollback buttonStep 5 of the Quick Import wizard also exposes a Rollback button right after a successful run.

Option 3 — Via WP-CLI

wp wkaie rollback 123 --yes

Where 123 is the run ID.

What Gets Rolled Back

For Imports

The plugin restores:

  • Product data (name, price, description, stock, etc.)
  • Custom meta fields
  • Category assignments
  • Tag assignments
  • Attribute assignments
  • SEO fields (Yoast, RankMath, AIOSEO)
  • Variation data
  • Image assignments (but images themselves stay in Media Library)

For New Records

If the import CREATED new products:

  • The new products are DELETED
  • Images uploaded with them stay in Media Library (may want to clean up manually)

For Updated Records

If the import UPDATED existing products:

  • Products are restored to their pre-import state
  • All changed fields revert

For Deleted Records

If the import DELETED products:

  • The products are RECREATED
  • All their data comes back

Selective Rollback

Don't want to undo everything? Pick specific records.

How to Use

  1. Open the run details page
  2. Click Selective Rollback
  3. A list of every changed record appears
  4. Check the ones you want to restore
  5. Leave the rest alone
  6. Click Rollback Selected

Example

You imported 1,000 products. 990 are fine but 10 have wrong prices. Don't undo everything. Select just those 10 and rollback only those.

What Does NOT Roll Back

Images in Media Library

The plugin does not delete images from the Media Library, even if the products are rolled back.

Why? Images may be used by other products, posts, or pages. Deleting could break other things.

Orders

Order imports do not support rollback. Once an order is imported, it is a live order in the system. Rollback would cause issues with inventory, reports, and payment tracking.

External Changes

If the import fired off other actions (like sending emails, webhook triggers, stock adjustments to other stores), those do NOT unwind. Only direct database changes from the import roll back.

Rollback Retention

Rollback snapshots take disk space. They are auto-deleted after a period.

Default Retention

  • 30 days for normal imports
  • 7 days for very large imports (over 100,000 rows)

Change Retention

Settings → Logs → Rollback Retention (Days).

Longer retention = more recovery safety. Shorter = less disk space.

Manual Cleanup

Free up disk space manually:

# Delete all rollback snapshots older than 14 days
wp wkaie rollback cleanup --older-than=14d

# Delete rollback snapshots for a specific job
wp wkaie rollback cleanup --job=42

Rollback Availability

Not every run can be rolled back.

When Rollback Is NOT Available

ReasonWhat to Do
Run is older than retention periodYou cannot rollback — restore from database backup
Entity does not support rollback (Orders)Manually edit the orders
Disabled in job settingsTurn it on: Job → Tab 6: Advanced → Enable Rollback
Run is still in progressWait for it to finish

The Rollback button is gray if rollback is not possible.

How Rollback Works Internally

This is technical — you don't need to know this to use rollback.

  1. Before the import runs, the plugin reads every record that will be changed
  2. Those records are serialized and saved in a wkaie_rollback table
  3. When you click Rollback:
    • The plugin reads the saved snapshots
    • Replaces current data with the snapshot data
    • Rebuilds indexes
    • Flushes caches

The process is the same speed as the original import — often faster since there's less computation.

Partial Rollback After Success

You can rollback a successful import (not just failed ones). Common use case: you imported successfully but realized a day later the data was wrong.

As long as the rollback is within the retention period, it works.

Safety Tips

Do a Test Import First

Before running a huge import, run a tiny test file (10 rows). Verify everything looks right. Then run the full import.

This is cheaper than a rollback.

Turn On Preview/Dry Run

Before the import actually writes to the database, the Preview shows exactly what will change. Use this to catch mistakes before the rollback is even needed.

Keep Recent Backups

Even with rollback, always keep recent database backups. UpdraftPlus is a popular free plugin. Set it to backup daily.

Troubleshooting

ProblemFix
Rollback button is grayRun is too old, or rollback is not supported for this entity
Rollback says "snapshot not found"Disk cleanup may have removed it. Check rollback retention
Rollback is slowIt processes the same amount of data as the original import. Be patient
Rollback completed but data is still wrongAnother import ran after this one. Check History for newer runs
I rolled back to restore a deleted product but the product is still goneTry re-running the rollback. If it still fails, check log for errors