How to "undelete" a deleted folder in Subversion / TortoiseSVN?

svn tortoisesvn directory undelete

68,234

Solution 1

Just copy the deleted folder back from an earlier revision.

In the Repository Browser, click the button labeled HEAD (at the top-right corner) to show to a revision there your folder still exists, then right-click that folder and select "Copy to..." and enter the path there you want the folder to be re-created (probably the same path that is already in the text box).

Solution 2

for the command line enthusiasts:

first find the revision number where your delete happened:

svn log -v http://svnserver/path/to/folderContainingDeletedFolder

say you find that the directory was deleted in revision 999 (btw: you might find it easier to find the revision number with the svn repo browser)

copy the folder from revision minus 1

svn copy http://svnserver/path/to/folderContainingDeletedFolder/deletedFolder@998 http://svnserver/path/to/folderContainingDeletedFolder/deletedFolder -m "undeleted folder"

voilà you're done!

in your case this might be:

    svn copy http://svnserver/project/tags@998 http://svnserver/project/tags -m "undeleted folder"

Solution 3

Most of these answers will work to a degree but the correct answer is Daniel's. Do a reverse merge. That way you keep version history.

svn merge -r R1:R2

where R1 is the revision that you're at, and R2 is the revision that contains the deleted file/folder.

Solution 4

You will need to do a reverse merge.

For details on how to do it (and pretty much anything else you would ever want or need to do with SVN), the official book is available online.

Solution 5

Following on from raudi's answer which worked for me after this revision.

Some svn clients might need the revision number specified using the -r revision parameter instead of using @ after the folder as follows:

svn copy svn://svnserver/project/tags svn://svnserver/project/tags **-r 998** -m "undeleted folder"

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68,234

Borek Bernard

For the past few years, I've been trying to bring Git version control to WordPress via a project called VersionPress. We're also working on a cloud-hosted version, VersionPress.com. I love TypeScript, Node.js, Kubernetes and clean code.

Updated on June 27, 2020

Comments

Borek Bernard almost 4 years

We have accidentally deleted the 'tags' folder from our Subversion repository where we only intended to delete one specific tag. What is the easiest way to get the 'tags' folder back?

We use TortoiseSVN as our client and I thought that when I go to the repo browser and show log, there will be something like "revert changes from this revision" similarly to what you can see in a similar dialog on your working copy. But there is no such command there...
Borek Bernard about 14 years

Oh I see, it was not in the Show Log dialog but in the main repo browser window. Still, that command will attempt to update my local working copy while I'd like to fix this problem on the server directly (you can imagine that checking out hundreds of tags, each containing thousands of files, is not exactly what I'd like to do).
Borek Bernard about 14 years

Great tip, thanks. One TortoiseSVN gotcha - in that "copy to..." dialog I had to change the path from 'example.com/svn/tags' to 'tags1' and then back for the OK button to become enabled.
slckin about 12 years

This might be fine for tags, but should not be done to undelete any other folder since you will lose history
acdcjunior over 10 years

It does keep history, just did it also.
Dharani Kumar over 10 years

Thanks..saved a lot of time
axiopisty about 8 years

This just saved my bacon!
arleslie almost 8 years

In a reverse merge, R1 should be the revision you want to revert with R2 being the revision before that.
arleslie almost 8 years

If you're restoring from a folder that still exists then -r <revision> will work. However if you're trying to restore the folder directly you'll need to use @<revision>. Otherwise it'll tell you the file was not found.
Oli over 7 years

just make sure you uncheck "Stop on copy/rename" when viewing the log, because otherwise TortoiseSVN will not show the history prior to your restore action (obviously)...
maxschlepzig over 7 years

You don't lose any history with svn copy.
Pascal almost 7 years

For those of us who aren't command line enthusiasts, see: tortoisesvn.net/docs/nightly/TortoiseSVN_en/…
OJ7 almost 6 years

Wouldn't this restore all deleted files/folders? Would this work if I only want to restore one specific deleted folder but not other deleted folders?
WallStProg over 5 years

Just wanted to confirm that the "svn copy" approach does in fact preserve all history, and for folders it operates recursively, restoring the folder and all children.
hsg about 5 years

It worked for me. The context menu option (on right click) is "Revert changes from this revision" and it would reverse merge the changes.
dgupta3091 over 4 years

It totally worked. Saved a lot of my time. Thanks :)