Acenda automatically saves a full export of your product catalog every day. If an import goes wrong or products are changed by mistake, you can download an earlier day's file and import it to put your products back the way they were.
This article shows you how to find a daily backup, restore your whole catalog from it, or restore only the products or columns you need.
How the daily backup works: The backup runs once a day, overnight (around midnight Pacific time). It's a CSV file of your catalog in the standard Catalog export layout, including your custom fields (fields.* columns) and image URL columns (images.*). Backups, like all imports and exports, are kept for about 120 days and are then removed automatically.
Find a backup
In the sidebar, under DATA TRANSFERS, click Exports.
Set Export Type to Catalog.
Scroll down to Generated Files. Daily backups show service-account-daily_export under the date in the Created column. Exports that you or your team ran show your user name instead.
Find the row whose Created date is the day you want to go back to. Check that its Status is Done.
Click the Download button in the Actions column to save the CSV to your computer.
Tip: Not sure which day to pick? Open an affected product and check its history first. How to View a Product's Change History shows what changed and when, so you can choose a backup from before the mistake.
Restore from a backup
Export your current catalog first. Before you import an old backup, take a fresh export of your catalog as it is now. Under DATA TRANSFERS > Exports, set Export Type to Catalog and Format to CSV, then click Export on the Standard Catalog (Default) row. Download it once its status shows Done. If you restore the wrong day, this file is how you undo it.
Download the backup you want (see Find a backup above).
Open the file in Excel or Google Sheets and check it's the right one: look at a few SKUs you know were affected and make sure the values are the ones you want back.
Edit the file if you only want to restore part of your catalog (see Partial restore below). Keep in mind:
Save it as .csv or .xlsx. Those are the only formats Acenda imports. If you're working in an .xlsm file, save it as .xlsx first.
Only the first sheet of a spreadsheet is read.
In Overwrite mode, a blank cell in a fields.* column clears that custom field. If you don't want to touch a column, delete the whole column instead of leaving its cells blank.
In the sidebar, under DATA TRANSFERS, click Imports, then click New Import.
Set Import Type to Catalog and upload your file.
Choose your import options:
Tick Overwrite any current records that have the same ID. Existing values will be used for any missing columns. This is what lets the backup values replace your current ones.
Tick Only update existing records. if you only want to fix products that are already in your catalog. Acenda won't create any new products from the file.
Click Start Import. You can follow its progress on the Imports page.
For a full walkthrough of the import screen, including the preview and import profiles, see Using the Import Feature: How to Import Product Data into Acenda.
Good to know: Without Only update existing records., any row in the file that doesn't match a current product can be created as a new product, and new products are automatically published to all your sales channels. If you're trying to bring back products that were deleted, contact Acenda Support first.
Partial restore
You don't have to restore everything. Trim the backup file down to just what you want to fix, then import it with Overwrite ticked:
Restore only some products: Delete every row except the products you want to restore.
Restore only some columns (for example, price): Delete every column except the identifier column and the column(s) you want to fix. Acenda updates only the columns in the file and keeps the existing values for everything else.
Every row needs an identifier so Acenda can match it to an existing product: either id or sku. If the file has both, Acenda matches on id first, so keep the backup's id column as it is or remove it and match on sku.
What a catalog backup doesn't include: Inventory and custom pricing aren't part of the daily backup. Those are separate export types (Inventory Details and Custom Pricing) that you can export yourself. Acenda also saves daily Channel Item Mapping, SKU Presentation and Promotion exports when you have that data. Select that type under Export Type to find them.
Troubleshooting and FAQ
I can't find today's backup. The backup runs overnight, so the newest file is from the most recent run. Make sure Export Type is set to Catalog, and look for service-account-daily_export in the Created column. If you need a file from right now, run your own export from the Standard Catalog (Default) row.
The backup I need is gone. Imports and exports are removed after about 120 days. To keep copies longer, download them, or set up a scheduled export to send catalog files to your own SFTP server under DATA TRANSFERS > Scheduled Exports. See Using the Export Feature: How to Export Data from Acenda.
The backup is missing a column I need. Daily backups use the standard Catalog layout. If you need a different set of columns, create your own export profile (Add Custom Profile) and export with it. Check that the column exists under CATALOG > Custom Fields if it's a custom field.
My restore import shows errors. Open the import on the Imports page to see which rows failed and why. The most common cause is a row with no id or sku ("id or sku is required"). Also check the file is .csv or .xlsx and the data is on the first sheet. Using the Import Feature: How to Import Product Data into Acenda covers the import errors in more detail.
I restored the wrong day. Import the export you took of your current catalog right before the restore, using the same steps. That's why we recommend exporting first. If you didn't, choose a backup from a different day and restore from it.
Can I make my own backup before a big change? Yes. Under DATA TRANSFERS > Exports, choose Catalog and click Export on the Standard Catalog (Default) row. Download the file once it's done.
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Still stuck? Contact Acenda Support and tell us which day you want to restore from and roughly how many products are affected.