How to restore SharePoint 2016 site collection in SharePoint 2013

Question

I have taken a site collection backup from SharePoint 2016 server (16.0.4327.1000) and I'm trying to restore in SharePoint 2013 which has Septembler 2015 Cumulative Updates installed.

When I run below command the restore process is failed.

How can I restore a SharePoint 2016 site collection in SharePoint 2013 Server?

Note: if restore not possible for downgrade version can i have any option to copy only master pages,css that developed in sharepoint 2016 Development environment

share point 2016 we are waiting for service packs for go for production

Answer 1

You can't restore it with OOTB functionality.

But if you use 3rd party tools then you can go earlier version. I used sharegate tool and moved couple of sites from higher version to lower version. You can try it as sharegate offer trial version.

Answer 2

You can't restore to an earlier version of SharePoint. You can, however, take a database backup of a SharePoint 2013 Content Database, run a few PowerShell Scripts (Test-SPContentDatabase, Upgrade-SPContentDatabase and Mount-SPContentDatabase) and upgrade to SharePoint 2016.

Downgrading is impossible.

Answer 3

You can simply use the PowerShell script to restore the site

Restore-SPSite  http://server_name/sites/site_name -Path C:\Backup\BackupFile.bak -Force