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I like having different profiles on different sites. On some, I have quite a long bit of text. Just now, I accidentally hit the "Save Profile and Copy to all Accounts" button. How can I reverse that and recover my old profiles on all sites?

(This was on Biology SE. I didn't actually make any changes, and what I wanted to hit was "Cancel". A simple fat finger mistake on one site shouldn't irrevocably lose data across SE.)

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  • You don't, I'm afraid. Not sure, but maybe profile info is also accessible using SEDE, so you can try to extract it from there.
    – Patrick Hofman
    Commented Aug 6, 2014 at 15:49
  • AFAIK you can't. You'll have to re-edit them all manually.
    – ChrisF Mod
    Commented Aug 6, 2014 at 15:49
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    This is aggravating, and while I haven't done it to myself yet I do fear misclicking and getting an unpleasnt, irreversible surprise. I try to maintain my profile texts externally for just this reason. But a history link for the "about" blurb, like we have for posts, sure would be helpful.
    – Monica Cellio
    Commented Dec 23, 2014 at 20:49
  • Also annoying, it happened just before an internet-free holiday, and by the time I came back the suggested solution of mucking about with the Data Explorer was no longer an option. @MonicaCellio.
    – TRiG
    Commented Dec 23, 2014 at 20:52

1 Answer 1

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Unfortunately, there is no Undo option here.

You could query the Data Explorer for your account description, or look at the Google Cache or Internet Archive copies of your profiles to recover the original text.

All but the Internet Archive are perishable caches; both the Data Explorer and Google Cache will eventually refresh their copy; the Data Explorer is refreshed every sunday.

For what it is worth, Google did cache your previous English.SE profile, as did the Internet Archive. Until this sunday, the Data Explorer copy is also available.

I do hope for your sake that not all 118 of your accounts had unique descriptions!

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  • GAAAH! They weren't all unique, but enough of them to be annoying. And I'll be away from a computer for the next week and a half.
    – TRiG
    Commented Aug 6, 2014 at 15:53
  • @TRiG: Then take a look at the Internet Archive of your accounts list and see how many are cached from before today. Handle those that haven't been first, using Google or the Data Explorer.
    – Martijn Pieters
    Commented Aug 6, 2014 at 16:01
  • @TRiG: I do spot a few that haven't been archived for example.
    – Martijn Pieters
    Commented Aug 6, 2014 at 16:03
  • Weirdly, English and Christianity (but not SF&F) have been restored. I didn't do that.
    – TRiG
    Commented Sep 21, 2014 at 3:40
  • @TRiG: Perhaps a side effect of the rollout of the new profile change-copy feature? See New! Smarter profile creation and syncing
    – Martijn Pieters
    Commented Sep 21, 2014 at 3:43

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