How to use Rewinder

Getting started

There's nothing to set up. As soon as you install Rewinder it takes a first full backup of your store, usually within a few minutes, and from then on it records every change as it happens.

1. Open Rewinder from Apps in your Shopify admin. The dashboard shows the first backup's progress, then how many items are protected.
2. Go to Alerts and check the email address (your store's contact email is filled in). Add a Slack channel too if you like (Pro).
3. Try it: change a product's price in Shopify, then open Changes in Rewinder. The change shows up within seconds, with the old and new price side by side.

What's backed up

A full backup runs every day; in between, product, collection and stock changes are recorded live. Rewinder never reads your orders or customers.

• Products: title, description, variants, prices, SKUs, barcodes, options, images, videos and 3D models, metafields, SEO, tags, status and sales channels
• Collections: rules or hand-picked products, product order, image, SEO and sales channels
• Stock levels per location
• Theme files of every theme (code, templates, settings), checked every 2 minutes
• Pages, blog posts, menus, metaobjects, URL redirects and files (Content → Files), backed up daily

Not included: orders, customers, discounts, store settings and other apps' data.

Seeing what changed

1. Open Changes for a timeline of everything that changed, newest first. Search by name, and filter by type, kind of change (e.g. deleted), how it was detected and dates.
2. Click an item to open its history: every saved version, and for the selected one a table of exactly which fields changed, before and after.
3. Use "Compared with" to compare any two versions. Products also show their price history.
4. For theme files the history shows the old and new file contents.

"Detected by" says how a change was spotted: Live (within seconds), Daily backup (caught by the nightly backup) or Restore (made by Rewinder).

Restoring something

1. Find the item under Changes (deleted items are there too) and open it.
2. Under Versions, pick the version you want back. Check the before/after table.
3. Click "Restore this version" (or "Recreate from this version" for something that was deleted). Rewinder shows exactly which fields will change, from how they are now to this version; click Restore to confirm.

• Products come back with their variants, prices, images, stock, collections and sales channels. A recreated product gets a new ID (and a new admin link) in Shopify.
• Videos and 3D models can only be put back if Rewinder kept a copy (Pro keeps copies of files up to 100 MB). YouTube and Vimeo videos always come back.
• Collections come back with their rules or hand-picked products and their product order.
• Files get their alt text back, and a deleted file is uploaded again from Rewinder's copy under its old name (Pro keeps copies up to 100 MB).
• Pages, blog posts, menus, metaobjects and URL redirects are restored in place, or recreated if deleted. A menu link to something that no longer exists becomes a plain link.
• Theme files: Shopify doesn't let apps write theme files, so download the file (or the whole theme as a ZIP from the dashboard) and put it back yourself. For a whole theme: Online Store → Themes → Add theme → Upload zip file, check it, then publish.

Restoring needs the Pro plan. On Free you can still see every change and version.

Undoing a bulk change

When many items change at once (a bad CSV import, an app or a bulk edit gone wrong) you get one alert for the whole batch, with an Undo button on the Alerts page. You can also undo from the Changes page:

1. From an alert: open Alerts → Recent alerts, find the alert (e.g. "40 products changed at once") and click Undo.
2. Back to a point in time: on Changes, narrow the list with the filters (e.g. Products, today), then click "From here" on the first bad change. Everything in the list that changed at or after it goes back to how it was just before.
3. Just some items: tick the changes you want to reverse and click "Undo ticked".
4. Items are put back one by one in the background; a banner shows the progress.

• Stock is undone by reversing the batch's change, so sales made since then are kept: stock that went from 10 to 0 and then sold 2 more ends at 8.
• Items the batch created aren't deleted, and theme files aren't undone (download them from their history instead).
• Items already back the way they were are skipped.

Undo needs the Pro plan.

Alerts

Alerts go by email, and to Slack on Pro. Choose instant alerts, a daily summary (only sent on days when something changed), or both. Use "Send test alert" to check they arrive. A weekly summary (changes backed up, restores, backup health) is on too. You can turn each kind on or off and set the thresholds:

• Price drops of at least the percentage you choose (a price set to 0 always alerts)
• Many products changed, or many items sold out, within a few minutes
• Products or collections deleted
• Products unpublished (set to draft or archived)
• Files changed in your live theme

To add Slack: in Slack open Apps → Incoming WebHooks → Add to a channel, copy the webhook URL and paste it on the Alerts page. To do more with alerts (tag a product, notify a team, create a task), use Shopify Flow: start a workflow with the "Rewinder alert raised" trigger.

Exporting a backup

1. On the dashboard, under Export, pick a backup time (or Now).
2. Download "Products CSV" to re-import products with Shopify's own importer (Products → Import), or "Everything (JSON)" for a complete copy of all backed-up data.

Exports need the Pro plan.

Plans and billing

Plans are billed by Shopify on your Shopify invoice. Change or cancel at any time from the Plan page; no need to contact us.

• Free: daily backups, live change history for 7 days, email alerts and the daily summary.
• Pro: everything in Free, plus restore, bulk undo, exports, theme downloads, Slack alerts, copies of your media files, and a full year (365 days) of history.

Questions

• A change didn't show up: theme edits take up to 2 minutes; pages, blog posts, menus and metaobjects appear after the next daily backup. Anything missed live is caught by the daily backup.
• A restore failed: the message says why (often an item it depends on was deleted). Restore that item first, then try again, or contact us.
• How far back can I go? 7 days on Free, a full year (365 days) on Pro. If you move from Pro to Free, your longer history is kept for 14 days in case you change your mind.
• What happens if I uninstall? Backups stop and all of your store's data is deleted within 48 hours.