How to use Server Rewind to restore e-mail

This article describes how to use the Server Rewind feature in cPanel to restore e-mail.

Many accounts now use JetBackup instead of Server Rewind for backup and restore management. If you do not see the Server Rewind icon in cPanel, look for the JetBackup 5 icon instead. For information about how to use JetBackup to restore email accounts, please see this article.

• Please note that this process completely replaces all e-mail on the account. Make sure you back up your e-mails before proceeding.
• Server Rewind is not available on managed VPS accounts with root access.

For server performance and stability reasons, Server Rewind is unavailable from 3:00 AM to 5:00 AM in the local time zone of the server.

• For accounts hosted at the Amsterdam data center, Server Rewind is unavailable between 3:00 AM and 5:00 AM Central European Time or Central European Summer Time, when applicable.
• For accounts hosted at the Arizona data center, Server rewind is unavailable between 3:00 AM and 5:00 AM Mountain Standard Time.
• For accounts hosted at the Michigan data center, Server Rewind is unavailable daily between 3:00 AM and 5:00 AM Eastern Standard Time or Eastern Daylight Time, when applicable.
• For accounts hosted at the Singapore data center, Server Rewind is unavailable daily between 3:00 AM and 5:00 AM Singapore Time.

Table of Contents

• Backups and Server Rewind
• Restoring e-mail with Server Rewind

Backups and Server Rewind

All Hostvento Hosting servers have redundant hard drives for real-time RAID 1 mirrored backups. We also provide off-server backups. These server backups are stored for the last 30 days on a best-effort basis. To do a restore from one of these backups, use the Server Rewind feature in cPanel.

If you require assistance from our Guru Crew in retrieving backups, please open a support ticket on the Customer Portal at https://secure.hostvento.com. In the ticket, please specify what you want to restore, and we will make a best effort to restore your data.

We recommend that you maintain your own backups as well. If you create full or partial backups using the cPanel Backup feature, however, please do not save multiple copies of backups on your hosting account. For more information, please see our Terms of Service.

Restoring e-mail with Server Rewind

To restore e-mail using Server Rewind, follow these steps:

1. Before using Server Rewind, back up your e-mail off-site.An easy way to back up e-mail is to set up a client application to access your accounts using POP. POP downloads all e-mail messages locally to your computer. For information about how to do this, please see this article.
2. Prepare the mail directory for e-mail restore:
   • If you want to restore all e-mail for all domains, remove the mail directory from the account entirely.
   • If you want to restore all e-mail for a specific domain, remove the directory in the mail directory. For example, delete only the mail/example.com directory.
3. Log in to cPanel.If you do not know how to log in to your cPanel account, please see this article.
4. Open Server Rewind:
   • If you are using the Jupiter theme, on the Tools page, in the Files section, click Server Rewind:
   • If you are using the Paper Lantern theme, in the FILES section of the cPanel home page, click Server Rewind:
     
5. Select the date that contains the e-mails you want to restore. To expand a date, click the + icon.
6. Select the mail directory.
   Make sure you leave the Restore into this location in my home directory text box empty.
7. Click Restore! The restoration process begins.
   The length of time to complete the restore process depends on directory size, the number and size of the files, and so on.
8. After the mail directory is restored, confirm that the etc/example.com directory is present, where example.com represents your domain name. This directory contains the login information for your e-mail accounts. If there are no files in the directory, select the etc directory in Server Rewind, and then click Restore!.

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