Import a backup archive to restore or clone a site

How to upload a .sgen or .zip backup file in SGEN

The Import panel lets you restore your site from a previously downloaded backup archive, or seed a new SGEN installation from a known-good snapshot of another site. You drag and drop (or browse for) a .sgen or .zip file, then click Import Now. SGEN replaces the current site's database and media with the archive's contents.

This replaces your entire site. Importing a backup overwrites all current content, settings, and user accounts with whatever was in the archive. Create a fresh backup of your current site first if you might need to reverse the import.

What is this for?

Import is for two scenarios: disaster recovery (the site is broken or accidentally wiped and you need to restore from a known-good archive) and environment cloning (you want a staging site to match a production snapshot, or you are seeding a brand-new installation from a template). In both cases, the operation replaces the entire site state in one step.

Good use cases

Example 1: Disaster recovery after an accidental bulk-delete. An admin deleted 300 product records by mistake. You navigate to Migration → Import, upload the backup that was created the night before, and click Import Now. After the import completes, you are automatically signed out. Log back in — the product catalog is restored to last night's state. Here is the Import panel showing a file ready to submit:

After clicking Import Now, SGEN processes the archive. When finished, your admin session ends and you are redirected to the login screen. Log in with the credentials that belong to the admin account in the imported archive — not necessarily the same as your current credentials.

Example 2: Clone staging to a fresh SGEN installation. You have finished building a site on your staging environment. You create a backup on staging via Migration → Backups, then open the Import panel on the new production installation. Upload the staging backup. After the import finishes and you log back in, the production site matches staging exactly — all pages, products, settings, and media.

Example 3: Restore after a botched theme swap. Before swapping the active theme, you created a backup named pre-theme-swap-20260423.sgen and downloaded it for safekeeping. The theme swap broke the layout. Navigate to Migration → Import on the broken site, upload your saved archive, and click Import Now. The site reverts to its pre-swap state.

What NOT to use this for

• Partial content imports — Import replaces the entire site. If you want to migrate only pages or blog posts between sites, use Tools → Post Migration (Import/Export) instead, which operates on individual content types.
• Reverting a single accidental change — if one page was accidentally edited, restoring a full-site backup overwrites everything else too. Use per-post revision history for small rollbacks instead.
• Importing from a different platform — the Import panel only accepts archives created by SGEN's own backup system (.sgen or .zip archives in the SGEN structure). WordPress export files, CSV files, and other platform archives are not supported here.

How this connects to other features

• Migration → Backups — the Backups panel is where you create the archive files that you upload here. The two panels work together as the full backup-restore cycle.
• Tools → Post Migration (Import/Export) — a finer-grained alternative for per-content-type transfers (pages, blog posts, events) that does not wipe settings, users, or media.
• Settings — environment-specific settings (mail server credentials, analytics integration tokens) are stored inside the archive. After importing a backup from a different environment, review and update any settings that should differ between environments.
• Users — the user accounts in the imported archive replace your current user accounts. After import, you log in with credentials from the archive's user table.

Before you start

• Have the .sgen or .zip backup archive accessible on your local computer.
• Know the admin credentials that belong to the archive you are importing — you will need them to log back in after the import completes.
• If this site has live visitors, schedule the import during a low-traffic window. The import process rewrites the database while visitors may be browsing.
• Confirm your archive file is within the server's upload size limit, shown on the Import form as "Max upload size: N MB". Contact your hosting provider to raise this limit if needed.

Where to go

1. Log in to your SGEN admin panel.
2. Click Migration in the left sidebar.
3. Click Import in the Migration sub-navigation.

Steps

1. Locate the Import panel

The Import panel shows a dropzone titled Import Backup with a file drop area and an Import Now button. The panel also shows the maximum file size your server accepts.

2. Select the backup archive

Drag your .sgen or .zip file onto the dropzone, or click the browse link inside the dropzone to open a file picker. The filename appears in the dropzone to confirm selection.

3. Click Import Now

Click the Import Now button. The browser uploads the archive and SGEN processes it server-side. During processing, do not close the tab or navigate away. Depending on archive size, this can take from a few seconds to a couple of minutes.

4. Log back in

When the import finishes, your admin session is ended and you are redirected to the SGEN login screen. Log in using the admin credentials that belong to the imported archive. Your site now reflects the state captured in the backup.

What success looks like

After a successful import: you are redirected to the login page. Log in and browse to any area of the admin panel — the content, pages, and settings should match what was in the archive. Navigate to your public site homepage and verify that pages and media load as expected.

What to do if it does not work

• Import form does not appear — the Migration module is not enabled. Contact your SGEN platform administrator.
• File is rejected as too large — the archive exceeds your server's upload limit. Contact your hosting provider to raise upload_max_filesize and post_max_size in your server configuration.
• Import finishes but you cannot log in after — the archive's admin user account has different credentials than your current ones. Use the password you know for that archive's admin account. If you do not know those credentials, contact your SGEN platform administrator for database-level account recovery.
• Images appear broken on the public site after import — the archive may have been created without including the uploads directory. Contact your SGEN platform administrator — the media files from the archive may need to be restored separately.

Next step

After a successful import, review your Settings to confirm that environment-specific values (mail server, analytics keys) are correct for this installation. Then browse the public site to verify that pages, images, and forms load as expected.