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While pages may need to be deleted on a website, sometimes you want a deleted page back! Fortunately, MediaWiki allows almost any action to be easily reversed. The same goes for page deletions. This article will show you how to restore, or undelete, a page on a MediaWiki-based website.

Step 1. Have the user rights needed to undelete a page[]

You normally require administrator privileges in order to restore a deleted page. If you don't have that flag, you can ask a local bureaucrat to appoint you as one, or you should probably just ask another administrator to do it for you.

Step 2. Find the deleted page[]

You can do this by going through the deletion logs, usually located at Special:Log/delete. Alternatively, if you know the exact page title of the deleted page, you can enter it at Special:Undelete.

Step 3. Open the undeletion interface[]

If you're going through the deletion logs, there should be a link called (view/restore) next to each log entry. That will take you to the undeletion interface. If you used the Special:Undelete method above, it should take you there automatically.

Step 4. Select the revisions you want to restore[]

By default, all revisions of a page will be restored. If you want to perform selective deletion, you will generally delete the entire article and then undelete only the revisions that you wish to keep. This method can be used to hide select revisions that are deemed too malicious for public view.

If you do not tick any check boxes, all revisions will be restored automatically. If you tick the checkboxes, only the revisions with a check gets restored.

Step 5. Provide a reason for restoring the revisions, and then hit Restore[]

...and you're done!

Notes[]

You can also view a deleted revision without actually restoring it. To do so, simply click on the "diff" or the timestamp in the undeletion interface, like you would in a normal page history. The revision's source code will be displayed. You can use the "Preview" button to render the text, like usual.

See also[]

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