How do I restore/undelete content in Canvas?

Sometimes mistakes happen, and course content can accidentally be deleted or changed. Fortunately, Canvas provides several tools to recover deleted content or restore previous versions of pages. Use these tools to restore deleted content quickly.

Quick Links: | Using the Undelete Tool | Using Page History | Using the Canvas Beta Instance |

Sometimes mistakes happen, and course content is accidentally deleted or changed. Fortunately, Canvas provides several tools to recover deleted content or restore previous versions of pages. In this article, we will discuss three methods that faculty can use to recover deleted or modified content in Canvas.

Method 1: Using the Undelete Tool

Canvas has a secret "undelete" tool that allows faculty to recover deleted items from their course. To use this tool, follow these steps:

1. Open your Canvas course
2. In your browser's address bar, append /undelete to the URL (e.g., https://canvas.csuchico.edu/courses/1/undelete).
   
    
3. Find the content item you want to restore.
4. Click on the "restore" button next to the item.

This method can help you quickly recover deleted content in your course. However, if a content item was edited, it won't show up here.

Method 2: Using Page History

Canvas tracks changes for all pages, which makes it possible to restore previous versions of a page. Here's how to use this feature:

1. Go to the page you want to restore.
2. Click on the three dots on the right side of the page.
3. Click "View page history."
   
    
4. Find the correct revision you want to restore.
5. Click "Restore this version."

This method is useful when you have accidentally modified a page and want to restore it to a previous version.

Method 3: Using the Canvas Beta Instance

Canvas provides a beta instance, which is a copy of the production instance created every week. This beta instance can be used to recover deleted or modified content. However, note that data in the beta instance may be outdated. Here's how to use the beta instance to restore deleted content:

1. In your web browser's address bar, navigate to https://chico.beta.instructure.com.
   
    
2. Inside the beta instance, open your course.
3. Find the content you want to restore.
4. Edit the content.
5. Copy everything.
6. Go to your live course on https://canvas.csuchico.edu.
7. Find the content you want to restore.
8. Edit the content.
9. Paste everything in.

This method is useful when the first two methods fail to restore your content.

Conclusion

These are three methods that faculty can use to recover deleted or modified content in Canvas. We recommend that you first try the undelete tool or page history, as they are the quickest and most reliable methods. However, if these methods fail, you can use the Canvas beta instance to recover your content. If you have any questions or need further assistance, please contact Canvas support through the help menu in Canvas.