Elementor Time Machine (Page History)

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Elementor Time Machine (Page History)

Keeps a copy of a page every time it is saved in Elementor (identical saves are skipped) and adds a History panel to the editor: a timeline of versions with a layout wireframe, date, author and label, "What changed?" against the saved page, one-click restore (the replaced version stays in the history), named checkpoints and delete. Elementor Extras → All Tools → Time Machine shows every page's timeline, compares any two versions element by element, and holds the per-page limit (10–100, labelled versions are never pruned), age limit and clean-up. Uses its own database table; off by default because of the storage it uses.

Where Elementor editor → History tab on the right edge of the screen. Elementor Extras → All Tools → Time Machine shows the timeline of any page, compares two versions and holds the settings.

How to use it

1. Turn on "Platform: Elementor Time Machine (Page History)" under Settings → Add-on features.
2. Edit a page with Elementor and click Update or Save Draft as usual. Each save that changes the page is kept as a version; saves with no changes are skipped.
3. Click the History tab. Versions are listed newest first with a wireframe of the layout, when and by whom they were saved, and how many elements they have. The top one is the current page.
4. Before a big change or a client call, type a name under "Save a named checkpoint" and click Save. Use Add label / Rename on any version to name it; labelled versions are never removed automatically.
5. Click "What changed?" on an older version to see which elements were added, removed, changed (with the settings that changed) or moved since then.
6. Click Restore, then "Yes, restore". The page is replaced with that version and the editor reloads. The version it replaced stays in the list, so you can switch back the same way.
7. Under All Tools → Time Machine, choose a page to see all of its versions as cards, tick two and click "Compare selected" for a side-by-side comparison, or tick several and delete them.

Notes

• Restoring a published page publishes the restored version straight away. Save your current edits first (or accept losing them): the panel warns you when the editor has unsaved changes.
• Restore replaces the page content and page settings (layout, hide title, custom CSS…). It never changes the page title, status, URL, order or comment settings. Elementor also records a WordPress revision for the restore.
• A version is the saved page, not unsaved edits in the editor. Elementor's automatic autosaves are not kept, and neither are Site Settings (kit) changes. Headers, footers and other templates have their own history when you edit them.
• Storage: each version is a copy of the page layout. Choose how many to keep per page (10, 25, 50 or 100) and an optional age limit under All Tools → Time Machine; "Delete old versions" removes old unlabelled versions from every page at once. Versions of a page are removed when the page is permanently deleted.
• Timeline pictures are wireframes of each version's layout (rows, columns and widget types). Developers can connect a screenshot service with the landtech_extras/time_machine/screenshot_url filter to show real screenshots instead.
• Developers: GET/POST /wp-json/landtech-extras/v1/time-machine/{page_id}/snapshots lists versions or saves a checkpoint; GET/DELETE …/time-machine/snapshot/{id}, POST …/snapshot/{id}/restore and …/snapshot/{id}/label, GET …/time-machine/diff?from=ID&to=ID (to=0 compares with the saved page); all need edit rights on the page. Hooks: landtech_extras/time_machine/capture, landtech_extras/time_machine/outline_kinds, landtech_extras/time_machine/snapshot_created, landtech_extras/time_machine/restored. window.landtechExtrasTimeMachinePanel.open() opens the panel, and ?ltxe_history=1 on the editor URL opens it on load.