--- title: Recover from accidental DynamoDB changes using Bulk Executor description: When accidental writes corrupt a DynamoDB table, a full PITR restore is slow and expensive. The Bulk Executor `revert-export` command offers a faster... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/recover-from-accidental-dynamodb-changes-using-bulk-executor-cjri60feb twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Recover from accidental DynamoDB changes using Bulk Executor | daily.dev og:description: When accidental writes corrupt a DynamoDB table, a full PITR restore is slow and expensive. The Bulk Executor `revert-export` command offers a faster... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/recover-from-accidental-dynamodb-changes-using-bulk-executor-cjri60feb og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/CJri60FEb.png og:image:alt: Recover from accidental DynamoDB changes using Bulk Executor og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Recover from accidental DynamoDB changes using Bulk Executor **[AWS Database Blog](https://daily.dev/sources/aws-database-blog)** · 8 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary When accidental writes corrupt a DynamoDB table, a full PITR restore is slow and expensive. The Bulk Executor `revert-export` command offers a faster alternative: run an incremental export to S3 with `NEW_AND_OLD_IMAGES`, then use `revert-export` to write back the old state for each affected item. An optional Python transform lets you selectively revert only specific items, skip valid concurrent writes, or even fix data mid-revert. Cost and duration scale with the change set size, not the full table, making it far cheaper for large tables. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### How can I undo accidental DynamoDB writes without restoring the entire table from PITR? Use the Bulk Executor `revert-export` command with a DynamoDB incremental export to S3 configured with the `NEW_AND_OLD_IMAGES` export view type. The command reads the export, swaps each item's new image for its old image, and writes the pre-change state back to the table. Cost and duration scale with the number of changed items, not the full table size, making it far cheaper than a full PITR restore. _Engineers dealing with bad data loads or migration rollbacks track tools like this on daily.dev._ ### How do I selectively revert only some DynamoDB items during a revert-export operation? Pass a Python transform file via the `--transform` parameter. The transform runs before the revert logic, receiving each item with its `old_image` and `new_image`. Return an empty array for items that should not be reverted, return the item to revert it, or modify `old_image` in place to fix data before writing it back. This lets you keep valid concurrent writes while undoing only the problematic ones. _Teams managing complex DynamoDB migrations find selective revert patterns like this on daily.dev._ ### What are the prerequisites for using DynamoDB Bulk Executor revert-export? You need a DynamoDB table with PITR enabled, an incremental export to S3 in DDB-JSON format with `NEW_AND_OLD_IMAGES` as the export view type, AWS credentials with permissions for DynamoDB, S3, and AWS Glue, Python 3.11 or later, and the Bulk Executor tool installed from the awslabs/amazon-dynamodb-tools GitHub repository. _Developers setting up DynamoDB recovery workflows find the latest tooling updates on daily.dev._ ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Introducing open source Bulk Executor for Amazon DynamoDB](https://daily.dev/posts/introducing-open-source-bulk-executor-for-amazon-dynamodb-ixgq8yvbc) · AWS Database Blog · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [The DynamoDB Connector is now in Tinybird Forward](https://daily.dev/posts/the-dynamodb-connector-is-now-in-tinybird-forward-thq72ap70) · Tinybird · 3 upvotes · 0 comments - [DynamoDB crash course: part 2 – data model](https://daily.dev/posts/dynamodb-crash-course-part-2-data-model-67qh0m1qw) · Planet Python · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Scaling a Financial Reconciliation Pipeline With Serverless](https://daily.dev/posts/scaling-a-financial-reconciliation-pipeline-with-serverless-gynvqfhrg) · Cloud Native Now · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#aws](https://daily.dev/tags/aws), [#aws-s3](https://daily.dev/tags/aws-s3) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/recover-from-accidental-dynamodb-changes-using-bulk-executor-cjri60feb) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Recover from accidental DynamoDB changes using Bulk Executor","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/recover-from-accidental-dynamodb-changes-using-bulk-executor-cjri60feb","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/recover-from-accidental-dynamodb-changes-using-bulk-executor-cjri60feb"},"datePublished":"2026-08-10T16:07:27.005Z","dateModified":"2026-08-10T16:08:00.557Z","description":"When accidental writes corrupt a DynamoDB table, a full PITR restore is slow and expensive. 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