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Edit a Live Bricks Builder Site Safely with Sandbox for Bricks

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When a client asks for changes on a live site, you usually have two bad options. You can edit in production, where visitors see every half-finished step. Or you can copy the site to a local or staging setup and then merge it back, which gets risky when orders keep coming in. Sandbox for Bricks lets you edit the live Bricks Builder site inside an isolated sandbox session. Regular visitors keep seeing the unchanged site, your client previews the changes through a private link, and you publish everything with one click once they approve.

Why use a sandbox for Bricks Builder

Here's the situation from the video. We built a real estate site in Bricks Builder, and the client asked for three changes:

  • lighter images with white buildings in the featured rentals
  • prices in red
  • a contact form section that stands out from the page

The usual way is to download the site, make the changes somewhere else, upload them to the client's server or test environment and then merge. With Sandbox you skip all of that. You work on the client's live website, but inside a sandbox session. Only people who have the sandbox link see the changes. Everyone who opens the regular URL sees the site as it was.

Install and activate Sandbox for Bricks

Sandbox installs like any other premium plugin, so there's nothing special to set up on the server.

  1. In WordPress, go to Plugins → Add New and click Upload Plugin.
  2. Click Choose File, select the zip you downloaded from the DPlugins shop and click Install Now.
  3. Click Activate Plugin.
  4. Go to Aether → Sandbox in the admin menu and open the License tab.
  5. Paste your license key and save the changes.

The settings page is called dPlugins Sandbox Settings and has four tabs: Settings, License, FAQ and Aether.

Start a sandbox session

Changes only stay isolated if a session is active before you start editing, so this step comes first.

  1. Go to Aether → Sandbox, Settings tab.
  2. Under Sandbox Sessions, click Add New Session. You'll get a notice like "Sandbox: New sandbox session created with id: #90161".
  3. Select the new session (for example Sandbox #90161) to activate it. The other option, Disable Sandbox, means no sandbox session is applied.
  4. Refresh the page. The WordPress admin bar now shows Sandbox: Sandbox #90161 with a green dot, so you can see that sandbox mode is on.

The session card shows its ID, a Preview link, and the buttons Publish, Export, Reset Link and Delete. You can also click Click here to change the SandBox session name to give the session a clearer name than the number.

Make the client's changes in Bricks

With the session active, open the page in Bricks Builder and edit it like you normally would. In the video we made all three client requests:

  • Images: we swapped the featured rental images for lighter photos of white buildings.
  • Red prices: we selected the price Heading element (the $450,987 text) and changed its color to red.
  • Contact section: we selected the contact section, opened the Style tab, went to Background → Background Color, picked a dark color and then adjusted the text so it stays readable on the dark background.

Then save in Bricks as usual. Nothing here is specific to Sandbox. You use the builder the same way you always do, and the changes are stored in the session.

Check that visitors see no changes

Before you send anything to the client, check that the live site really didn't change. Open the site in an incognito or private window using the regular URL, without the sandbox link. In the video, the incognito window still shows the original images, the green prices and the light contact section. Visitors and customers keep using the site as usual while you work.

Share the sandbox link with your client

The client needs to see the changes before they go live, but without a staging copy. Back in Aether → Sandbox, copy the Preview link from the session card and send it to the client. It points to the regular site URL with sandbox parameters added.

When we open that link in the browser, all the changes show up: the white buildings, the red prices and the dark contact form section. Only people who have this link see them.

Publish the changes

Once the client approves, click Publish on the session card. The sandbox changes are merged into the live site. In the video we opened the site again in incognito mode with the regular URL, and all the changes were applied for everyone.

So the whole job was done on the live website, and nobody saw work in progress.

Who is this for

  • Agencies and freelancers on Bricks Builder who get change requests for sites that are already live and don't want to maintain a separate staging copy.
  • Anyone running an e-commerce site where purchases keep coming in. Downloading the site to work on it locally and pushing it back means you can lose or overwrite new orders.
  • Developers who need client approval before changes go live. The client can review them with one link.

FAQ

Will visitors see my changes while I edit in the sandbox? No. In the video, the site opened in incognito with the regular URL shows no changes until the session is published. Only people with the sandbox preview link see the edits.

How does my client preview the changes? Copy the Preview link from the session card under Aether → Sandbox and send it to them. Opening that link shows the site with all the sandbox changes.

How do I push the sandbox changes to the live site? Click Publish on the sandbox session. The changes are merged into the live site and every visitor sees them.

Do I need a local or staging copy of the site? No. That's the point of the plugin. You work directly on the live Bricks site inside an isolated session, so you don't have to download, upload or merge a copy.

How do I know sandbox mode is active? After you activate a session and refresh, the WordPress admin bar shows the active session, for example Sandbox: Sandbox #90161.

Get Sandbox for Bricks → dplugins.com

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