Backup Pro

Backup Pro shows you the backups Domma keeps of your site, lets you back it up yourself at any time, and brings back the whole site or just the parts you need. It also keeps a record - Activity - of everything done with your backups, by you or by Domma.

Backup Pro works on sites that Domma runs. Domma backs every site it runs up every night whether or not Backup Pro is installed; Backup Pro puts those backups in your own admin.

What Domma does with your backups

• Backs your whole site up every day, at a quiet time: pages, collections, media, users, settings and your database. Backups are encrypted.
• Keeps them for a year, thinned out as they age: one a day for the last two weeks, one a week for two months and one a month for a year (unless Domma has agreed different rules for your site).
• Tests a restore every month. Your latest backup is restored somewhere separate, started and checked, to prove it would really bring your site back. Your live site is never touched.
• Can restore your site if something goes wrong - including at 3am when nobody is around. When Domma restores anything, it must give a reason, and you are told before it starts and when it finishes.
• Tells you everything. Every backup, failure, restore, change of schedule and test is written to Activity and sent to your notifications, with who did it and why. You cannot stop Domma looking after your site, but you can always see what it did.

Getting started

1. Open Backups from the admin sidebar.
2. The Overview says whether your site is backed up, when the last good backup was, and when the next one runs.
3. Before a big change - a redesign, an import, a bulk edit - click Back up now and give the backup a name, such as "Before the redesign".

Screens

Overview

• The headline is green when your site has a good backup less than 26 hours old. It turns red when the last backup failed or none has been made for more than 26 hours - Domma is told at the same time. The Backups item in the sidebar shows a red badge too; while all is well it shows how many backups Domma holds of your site.
• Next backup, How long backups are kept, Test restore and Copy on another server show the rules Domma runs for your site and how the latest test went.
• How long backups are kept: older nightly backups are thinned to one a day, one a week and one a month. A backup you take yourself with Back up now is kept on its own terms - 90 days or your last 20, whichever keeps more - so it is never removed the same day.
• If your site uses a database Backup Pro cannot back up (one on Domma's old database server), your backups still run and each backup's notice says which database was skipped.
• Back up now (also in the bar at the top) makes a backup straight away.

Backups

Every backup Domma holds of your site, newest first, with when it was made, what kind it is and who made it:

• Scheduled - the nightly backup.
• Made by hand - someone clicked Back up now (here, or Domma's staff).
• Before an update - Domma backs your site up before updating it.
• Safety backup - taken automatically before every restore, so a restore can itself be undone.

Click a backup to restore from it. Right-click it (or click ⋮, or press Shift+F10) to download it instead.

Activity

Everything done with your backups, newest first, in plain sentences - for example "Restored by Domma (Darryl): the collections faqs from the backup of 27/09/2026 02:31" with the reason Domma gave. The record is written by Domma's backup service as things happen. It cannot be edited or deleted, from here or anywhere else.

Restoring

1. On Backups, click the backup to restore from.
2. Choose what to bring back:
   • Whole site - everything goes back as it was then.
   • Collections - tick the collections to put back; their entries added since are removed, and everything else is left as it is now.
   • Pages - tick pages, or tick none to put every page back.
   • Media - tick media folders, or tick none to put the whole library back.
3. Add a note for the activity log if you like ("Undo the bulk delete of 12:40").
4. Read the summary of what will change, click Restore, and confirm.

A safety backup of your site as it is now is always taken first. If the restore was a mistake, restore that safety backup.

Your passwords, API keys and licences are never changed by a restore from this screen, and a restore never touches another site.

Downloading a backup

Right-click a backup and choose Download. The file (.tar.gz) holds your site's content, media, users and settings, without passwords, keys or licences. Keep it somewhere safe: it still contains your users' names and email addresses.

Notifications

Backup Pro sends notifications to the site's administrators for:

• backups made (by schedule, by Domma or by someone here),
• backup problems - a failed backup, a failed test restore, or backups overdue,
• restores - always, whoever did them,
• changes Domma makes to your schedule or keep rules, and old backups removed,
• test restores.

You can choose which of these you receive under Notifications > Sources. Whatever you choose, Activity always keeps the full record.

Who can do what

The Backup Pro permission (System > Roles) has three parts:

• View - see the Overview, the list of backups and Activity.
• Back up - use Back up now.
• Restore - restore from a backup, or download one.

Administrators have all three. Give Restore only to people you would trust to put your whole site back.

Questions

My site is not run by Domma. Backup Pro shows a message instead of your backups: it has no Domma backups to show. Ask Domma about hosting, or about backing up a site you run yourself.

"Cannot reach Domma right now". Your backups are safe - the screen could not reach Domma's backup service for a moment. Try again in a minute.

Can I delete a backup? No. Backups are removed only by the keep rules, and each removal is recorded in Activity.