Backing Up a Blogger Blog

Just like any other work you create, it is a good idea to make regular backups of your blog. This post walks you through how to back up a blog hosted on Blogger. Other sites (like WordPress) work differently, but the concept remains the same, you should back up your work!

Before you begin create a folder on your computer (if you don’t already have one) where you will store the backup files for your blog.This way you will know where to find them if you need them. The day your blog has disappeared and you need to rebuild it is not the day you want to try to remember what random download folder has your backups in it.

Log in to Blogger as the administrator of the blog you are backing up.

#1 -Back up your Template

• Go to the blogs Template page.
• In the upper right hand corner of the page is a backup/restore button, click on it.
• A dialog box will open with an orange download full template button, click that button.
• Save the file to your computer (if you are using Firefox it will automatically go to the downloads folder).
• Rename the file with the name of the blog it is a template for and the date you downloaded it. 

#2- Back up your Posts

• Go to the blog’s Settings page and choose Other (at the bottom of the list on the left hand side of the screen).
• At the top of the “other” page is “blog tools” where you will see an “Export Blog” link, click on it.
• A dialog box will open with an orange download blog button, click that button.
• Save the file to your computer (if you are using Firefox it will automatically go to the downloads folder).
• Rename the file with the name of the blog and the date you downloaded it.

#3- Back up all the URLs in your blog layout (including blogrolls and link lists) 

• View the blog and expand any blogrolls or link lists that display in a shortened version.
• Right click somewhere in the sidebar of your blog and choose “view page source” from the menu that displays.
• An html document will display with all the coding that makes up your blog pages on it, save this document (as an html doc) with the name of the blog and the date you downloaded it as part of the name. 

These three steps should be done as frequently as you feel is necessary to be able to have current info that will allow you to recreate your blog in the event of a Blogger/Google disaster.  How often this is depends on the frequency with which you post to your blog and how often you make changes to your link lists and template. Decide how often your blog needs backing up and set a reminder in your calendar to make sure it gets done. You should definitely back up your blog (all 3 steps) before you begin any blog remodeling projects, even minor ones.

Restoring your blog from the backups

If you need to restore your blog you would import the template (go to the same place you saved it from to upload it); then import the blog posts (again, from the same place you exported it and choosing the option to automatically publish all imported posts); then you will need to re-set all your settings (those don’t necessarily transfer) and recreate your blogrolls and link lists (using the info in the html version of your site that you saved). 

If you use pages on your blog those will be part of the imported info, but won’t show automatically. To get your pages to show you will need to open each one “reverted to draft” and republish it.

There are things that will be missing though, including any pictures and widgets you had on your sidebars; any comments that were left on your blog; and any posts you added since the last time you did a backup.  There are a couple of things you can do to that will help you recreate most of this information if you have to rebuild your blog.

Document your blog layout 

• Create a new document using whatever word processor you like that will allow you to paste images into it.
• View your blog and beginning at the top take screen shots moving down through the blog in order and pasting each shot into the document. You may want to overlap the shots a little bit so you can see how each element in the sidebars relates to the ones above and below it. Be sure you include your blog header and footer.
• In the document you created add notes below each image that will help you recreate the widgets and images in your sidebars (the urls where you got the images, or the settings you chose in the blogger tool you used to create something).
• Save this document in the same folder with your other backups.
• Whenever you make changes to the layout of your blog make sure to update this document to reflect the changes. You don’t need to create this every time you do a backup, only when you remodel.
• NOTE: If you don’t feel certain you will remember what settings you had chosen for various things, or if you have several blogs with different settings, you could make a similar document with screen shots of your settings pages.

Keep an email backup of your posts

• On the Settings/Mobil and Email page of your blog there is an option to “email posts to” with a box where you can add an email address. This will automatically email a copy of any post (including the images in it) that is published to the indicated email address. 
•  Activate this by adding an email address in the box and saving the change.
• Save the emails (somewhere you could find them if you wanted them) and you will have a record of every post you added to your blog.
• Recreating all your posts from this info would be a LOT of work. However, it will make it possible for you to recreate the posts that you wrote between the last backup you did and the disaster that required you to rebuild your blog.
• NOTE: Most mail programs allow you to set up rules to automatically filter messages, so these messages wouldn’t need to go into your inbox at all, they could be sent directly to a folder without your ever looing at them unless disaster strikes.  If mail storage is an issue for you these messages could be deleted each time you run a backup of your blog content.

Keep an email backup of your comments

• If your blog accepts comments and you moderate them you can choose to have a notice sent to an email address every time there is a comment to be moderated. Activate this setting.
• Save the emails (somewhere you could find them if you wanted them) and you will have a record of every comment that was left on your blog.
• NOTE: As far as I know there is no easy way to get the comments back on your recreated blog, but you would have them for reference if you wanted them.

Duplicate the backups to be EXTRA safe

• Create an online storage account that is not hosted by Google (Dropbox.com is an option). Why avoid Google? It is a case of not putting all your eggs in one basket.Blogger is part of Google, so if your Blogger blog needs to be recreated you may have issues at that point with other Google accounts as well.
• Copy all your backup files from your computer into the online storage account each time you run a backup.