Restoring from an archive
Archived records aren't gone — they're a restore away. Whether an auditor needs one old case or a business change makes a whole year of records relevant again, you can bring them back into Salesforce.
Browse and query first
Every archive run's capture behaves like a snapshot:
- Browse the run's per-object details to see what was captured.
- Query archived records in the Query Console — pick the archive's capture as the source, filter, join, export. This is usually enough for "can you look something up?" requests, with no restore at all.
Restore records to Salesforce
- Open the archive run that contains the records and click Restore.
- The restore designer opens pre-seeded with the archive's captured scope, pointed at its capture.
- Trim the scope to what you actually want back — keep the whole tree, or filter down to specific records.
- Continue through the standard restore flow: pre-flight review, target org, load mode, then launch. See Restoring data.
[SCREENSHOT REQUIRED: Restore designer opened from an archive with the pre-seeded scope]
Good to know
- Restoring from an archive doesn't remove anything from the archive — the archived copy stays intact, so you can restore the same records again later or to a different org.
- If the archive policy is still active and the restored records match its filter, the next scheduled run may re-archive them. Adjust the policy's filter (or pause the policy) if the records should stay in Salesforce.
- Relationships within the archived scope are rebuilt on restore, level by level, like any other restore.