Saving and deleting

[Graham_Strachan]

I am brand new to airtable and have no experience of using this type (or any really) of database. I understand that there is a lot of assistance through the various guides but I made an error the other night which could have been costly had my database been up and running, rather than being tested by me.

My error was, I thought I was deleting a cell, instead all of the records I had created disappeared.

I’m sure that, in time, I will find the answers to my questions in the guides. However, time is not on my side if `i make the same error when the data is actually important.

So, can you help?
How do I not delete entire records by mistake?
However, in the event that I did, surely there’s an “undo” button?
Also, I’m sure that I read that your bases and their contents are automatically saved?
How can I make back up bases in case I make my original mistake?

Apologies for my questions, you may think I’m being lazy. However, I hope you understand that I want to progress quickly as the database is key to work that I’m doing, but I really don’t want to be creating bases and running the risk of deleting lots of good work unintentionally again.

Thanks in advance for any help you may be able to give me.

Graham

[Justin_Barrett]

Welcome to the community, Graham! :grinning_face_with_big_eyes:

Graham_Strachan:

How do I not delete entire records by mistake?

There’s really only one way to delete a record, and that’s by right-clicking on some field in a record and choosing “Delete record” in the popup menu (or “Delete all selected records” with fields selected across multiple records). The wording should make it clear that you’re deleting one or more complete records, not just the contents of certain fields.

Graham_Strachan:

However, in the event that I did, surely there’s an “undo” button?

Yes. CTRL-Z is the fairly-universal shortcut for “undo” in most applications.

Graham_Strachan:

Also, I’m sure that I read that your bases and their contents are automatically saved?

The data is automatically saved on Airtable’s servers as changes are made, and that’s the only place the data lives. No data is saved locally.

Graham_Strachan:

How can I make back up bases in case I make my original mistake?

You can export individual tables as CSV files. However, that only exports the raw data. For formula, lookup, rollup, and other computed fields, only the final value is exported, not the field definition. Attachments are also not exported. I’ve read about some third-party tools that will do a more robust export, but even those have limitations, and there may be fees involved for those services.