When WordPress will not load at all.
A backup that can only be restored from inside WordPress is useless on the day WordPress is the thing that broke. So the archive is restorable without it — one file, one command, no dashboard, no plugin, no account.
The command
$ php resurrect.php backup-2026-07-31.gpg
It expands the archive, restores the database, and writes the files back. It asks before it overwrites anything, and it refuses to run against a directory that is not a WordPress root.
What you need
- PHP on the server — the same PHP that runs your site.
- The archive file, and your private key if the backup is encrypted.
- Nothing else. No network access to us: we are not part of the restore path.
Why the key never leaves you
Backups are encrypted with a public key. The private half is generated on your machine and is never sent anywhere — not to us, not to your storage provider. That is what makes the archive safe to keep on storage you do not control. It also means we cannot recover it for you: keep it somewhere you will still have it on a bad day.
Check this before you need it. Restoring for the first time during an
incident is the worst moment to discover a missing key or an unreadable archive. Run a
rehearsal into a copy while everything is fine — that is the whole idea behind the product,
and it takes about fifteen seconds.