How to back up Teamwork (and restore deleted data)

In short: Teamwork.com keeps deleted tasks, files, messages and projects in a trash can for 30 days, then deletes them permanently; only administrators can restore, and there is no undo for edits. ProBackup takes a daily snapshot of your Teamwork.com projects, tasks, comments and attachments and restores deleted tasks, with their comments, checklists and files, from any snapshot in your version history.

Why Teamwork.com's own protection is not a backup

Teamwork.com runs a serious backup regime for its own platform: "a 3 tiered approach to database backups" with daily snapshots, point-in-time restore and encrypted copies exported to AWS (source: Backups and Storage, checked 2026-09-16). Those backups exist so Teamwork.com survives an outage. They are not a service you can call to get back the task list a project manager deleted six weeks ago.

What you can use yourself (checked 2026-09-16):

• Trash can. "Deleted items are stored in the trash can for 30 days, before being permanently deleted." Only administrators and project administrators can open it, and "you can only restore items you have permission to see". Restoring a task brings its comments back; subtasks are deleted and restored together with their parent. Source: Viewing and Restoring Deleted Project Items
• Deleted projects. Deleted projects and project templates can be restored for 30 days, and "only owner company site administrators can restore a project once deleted". After 30 days "it will not be possible to restore it". Source: Viewing and Restoring Deleted Projects
• MySQL export. Site administrators can generate a raw MySQL dump of the whole site, once per day. Teamwork.com is explicit that it "isn't in a format like Excel that you can easily open and edit" and "cannot be edited and uploaded back to your site". Whether attachments are included is not stated. [verify] Source: Generating a MySQL Backup of Your Content
• Edits. Nothing in Teamwork.com reverts a task description, due date or assignee to yesterday's value. [verify: no native field-level rollback]

How to back up Teamwork.com with ProBackup

ProBackup is a SaaS backup service that takes automated daily snapshots of your cloud app data and lets you restore individual records, files or whole projects back to the original account. For Teamwork.com that means projects, task lists, tasks, comments, attachments, clients and users, stored encrypted on AWS S3.

1. Start a trial at app.probackup.io/onboarding. The 7-day trial needs no credit card.
2. Select Teamwork.com and connect via OAuth. You sign in on Teamwork.com's own screen and authorise ProBackup; ProBackup never sees your password. Connect with a site administrator account so the API can read every project. [verify: admin requirement; whether specific projects can be excluded from scope]
3. Choose your storage region. Nine AWS regions are available; you select one at signup. Changing region after the first backup requires support assistance.
4. Let the first snapshot run. It starts automatically and completes within 24 hours. From then on, ProBackup takes a new snapshot every 24 hours with no scheduling on your side, storing a new revision only for tasks that changed.
5. Optional extras. Smart Alerts (Pro and Premium plans) notify you when a snapshot shows an unusual number of deletions. Google Drive sync (Pro and Premium plans) keeps a spreadsheet copy per data type; if a data type has more than 50,000 records no Sheet is created, but the AWS backup remains active.

Snapshots are encrypted with AES-256 at rest and TLS in transit. ProBackup is SOC 2 Type II certified (since May 2025) and GDPR compliant.

What is (and is not) backed up

ProBackup backs up what the Teamwork.com API exposes:

Not backed up: time logs, reports, planning, project templates, budgets, proofs, forms and calendar events. In ProBackup's own words, "these data types are not available through Teamwork.com's API. We will add them to the backup scope as soon as they become available." Milestones, messages, notebooks and links are also outside the current scope. [verify: milestones/messages/notebooks/links status] ProBackup captures only the first 2,000 characters of a text field. [verify: applies to Teamwork.com task descriptions]

How to restore deleted Teamwork.com tasks

1. Open your Teamwork.com backup in ProBackup and navigate to the project and task list.
2. Choose the snapshot date, the last one taken before the deletion. Global Search finds a task by name across all snapshots (unlimited on Pro and Premium; 3 free uses per month on Plus).
3. Select one task or a filtered set of tasks and click Restore.
4. ProBackup writes them back through the Teamwork.com API. "When you restore a task, a duplicate is created in the related project and list. All comments, checklists, and files are restored with it."

Two things to know before you click:

• Restore mode. ProBackup offers two restore modes across its platforms: create new duplicate records, or overwrite existing records field by field. For Teamwork.com, restore currently creates duplicates, which is the safe option: tasks that still exist are never modified. Restore is available for tasks today; ProBackup is "working on adding more restore capabilities for Teamwork.com". [verify: overwrite mode not available for Teamwork.com]
• Where the task lands. The duplicate is created in the task's original project and task list. If that list or project was itself deleted, restore it from Teamwork.com's trash can first (within 30 days) or recreate it before restoring the tasks. [verify: behaviour when the parent project or list no longer exists] Restored tasks receive a new Teamwork.com task ID; if the deletion is less than 30 days old and you need the original ID, the trash can is the better first step.

Restores go back to the original Teamwork.com site only. ProBackup is not a migration tool.

Frequently asked questions

How long does Teamwork.com keep deleted tasks?

30 days. Deleted items sit in the project trash can for 30 days and are then permanently deleted; only administrators and project administrators can restore them. Deleted projects follow the same 30-day window and can only be restored by owner-company site administrators (checked 2026-09-16). ProBackup keeps daily snapshots for 6 months on Plus, 2 years on Pro and unlimited on Premium.

Does ProBackup back up Teamwork.com time logs?

No. Time logs, reports, planning, project templates, budgets, proofs, forms and calendar events are not available through the Teamwork.com API, so they are outside the backup scope until Teamwork.com exposes them.

Can I restore a whole Teamwork.com project with ProBackup?

Project structure is backed up and browsable, and every task in it can be restored, with comments, checklists and files, in one action. The project and task-list containers themselves are not recreated by ProBackup today; restore them from Teamwork.com's trash can or recreate them first. [verify]

Start backing up Teamwork.com today

Plans start at $25 per month, billed yearly (Plus $25, Pro $38, Premium $69 per month, billed annually), and one licence covers every connected app. Join the 4,000+ teams already protecting their SaaS data: start your 7-day free trial. No credit card required; your first Teamwork.com snapshot is ready within 24 hours.