Bestest Friend and I are doing a blog project. Each day we will write a post on a pre-determined theme chosen by a random noun generator. The theme for the fourteenth day of the month is "Control."
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There's a lot going on in my life right now that I can't control. But when I recently found out that Elisabeth's blog had been deleted, I felt so terrible for her. Talk about something you can't control! I realized that I'd never backed up my own blog, so I decided to make it a priority.
In Blogger, it's pretty easy, although I had no idea how to even start until I did a Google. (Are any of you following the Google anti-trust lawsuits? I'm fascinated by it and since I'm 100% all-in in the the world of Google, I'm nervous about what outcome might happen in terms of my own personal internet use/storage/email.)
Step One: On your Blogger dashboard, select "Settings."
Step Two: Scroll down to Manage Blog. Select Back up content.
Step Three: You're done! Store that file somewhere safe! This only saves posts, pages and comments, so all the images are gone. Hm.
Step Four: Repeat Step Two with Videos from your blog and Media from your blog to save videos and images.
I'm not 100% sure what I would do with these files if something happened to my blog, but at least I'd have them?
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| Random photo of Zelda Belda just so I had a photo to add for my "Control" folder. LOL. |
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Have you ever backed up your blog?
Good job! Apparently my blog gets auto-backed up with Wordpress.com. I also had started copying and pasting my posts (photos included!) and saving them as Word docs on my external hard drive. My intent was to just do this quickly each week- then it would only take a minute or two. But I got a little behind and should catch up... this was just supposed to be my way to ensure I still have the full posts that LOOK like the posts. I think the backup in Wordpress is more of a compressed file that would mostly just enable me to export it to a new blog site, if somehow mine got destroyed.
ReplyDeleteThere is a great WP plugin that can push all this at once. It's called Print My Blog and it's easy to pull everything out and then you can copy and paste it in a single move. I opted NOT to include pictures because I was counting on just printing out the text sometime as a sort of "diary" but you can push everything including the formatting of your posts, tags etc. It's pretty nifty (and free!!).
DeleteYou copy and paste ALL your posts. That sounds like so much work! I have almost 3000 published posts! This whole thing with Elisabeth's blog has really started to stress me out. I don't have the patience to cut and paste my whole blog and then if something did happen to the web version, I'd have to cut and paste it all again! I can't imagine doing that!
DeleteI remember this happening from time to time on Blogger. Was everything she wrote lost? I'd just feel sick.
ReplyDeleteSounds like she has her text and maybe her comments, but all her photos are gone. So sad! If my blog was deleted, I honestly think I would be inconsolable. She's been a lot better of a sport about it than I would have been, that's for sure!
DeleteI have all my text (exported monthly using a Wordpress plugin called Print My Blog) and maybe most of my comments? Life has been so crazy that getting the blog back up and running is on the back burner for a bit (but goodness I miss writing SO MUCH)...that said, all the images are gone.
ReplyDeleteI'm going to do a fresh relaunch with a new url and everything which feels both bittersweet and terrifying to start from scratch. So YES. BACK UP YOUR BLOGS FOLKS <3
I'm so sorry it was a lesson we all had to learn from you losing yours, though. Ugh!!
DeleteOh, Elisabeth. I'm still heartbroken for you. And thanks to you, I did the Print My Blog thing (not that my blog is nearly as amazing as yours and NGS's), and I also use WP Backup, which writes a backup file when I tell it to. I have no idea what I could do with that if I needed it, but it exists.
DeleteI'm so glad to hear you will relaunch and hope that you broadcast that far and wide in the comments on others' blogs so we can all find you!
And NGS, thanks for *reminding* us all to do this. it's one of those things that can so easily fall off one's radar...
Oh no Elisabeth! So upsetting. I'm glad you at least have your writing for yourself. I will have a look at Print my Blog, so thank-you ... and confirm that my blog is automatically backing up. I use DayOne for my personal journal and have an IFTT applet set up to send each blog post to DayOne (it only includes one photo per post) which is pretty neat.
DeleteOoh, I'm curious what you think of DayOne? I used to use Penzu (which is still around, fyi) and have heard others talk about DayOne. Thoughts? Is it user-friendly? Can you print from it?
DeleteUgh, that sucks so much that happened to her :( I used to back mine up and stopped. I do have all the emails saved of the posts. I should try out the "Print my blog" Elisabeth recommends.
ReplyDeleteI think it's easier with WP, that's for sure. But it also sounds like it could be even more devastating if something goes wrong!
DeleteI backed up my blog a long time ago, but it's been years and years. I think if something happened to it, it might be awful, but I'd get over it even after 18 years. Some of my best writing is there, but nothing lasts forever, I guess.
ReplyDeleteI'd get over it, too, I think. I would be devastated, but how often am I reading my archives anyway? I'd still be able to follow my blogger friends and be part of the community. It's just...it would be devasting.
DeleteOh lord, I guess I would get over it, but it would be hard. And no, I'm terrible at backing it up. I started downloading the posts one by one a long time ago but stopped. I didn't even realize Blogger had this feature, although when I tried it it looks like everything is in HTML and I'm not sure how to convert it. Thanks for the reminder, I guess I'll start saving the posts one by one again like a chump.
ReplyDeleteYes, everything is in html, but I think if you really truly lost your blog, that file would be a huge help, certainly more than cutting and pasting! How time consuming!
DeleteUgh, it sucks so much that this happened to Elisabeth. I was devastated for the 36 hours my blog was down when I had malware; I can't imagine if it was fully GONE. My blog is so important to me!
ReplyDeleteI think my hosting company does a regular backup of my blog, but I need to make sure!
Yes, you should definitely check with your hosting company! It would be such a loss to have it all just completely disappear!
DeleteMy old blog is on blogger so this is helpful because I need to work out what I'm going to do with it to save some of what's on there before I delete it. It has a lot of photos and stories of the kids, and although I've set it to private, but I want a more permanent solution.
ReplyDeleteDo it! It's easy!
DeleteI'm clueless here. Does my hosting company back up my blog? Why do I not even know this? I'm going to look into it (duh) and also look into the Wordpress plugin Elisabeth is talking about. Due to Elisabeth's tragedy, we'll all have our blogs backed up! Also, i miss Elisabeth's blog so much! I can't wait till she's up and running again.
ReplyDeleteI am always so sad when I realize that Elisabeth's blog is gone. I sometimes still check it. :(
DeleteYou are not the only one. Now the URL connects to some random guy's WhatsApp. :(
DeleteHey, Daniel Butler! Getting lots of views from a random women-heavy section of the internet!
DeleteI haven't done this for a long time. Thanks for the reminder.
ReplyDeleteYes, do it for sure! Imagine if all your beautiful images were gone! It would be devastating.
DeleteI needed this reminder! I remember backing mine up once, but that was long ago, and I don't even remember how I did.
ReplyDeleteI once looked into printing out my blog, like into book format, to have a record of it, but I couldn't find one that didn't randomly sprinkle the photos around, and that was a hard no from me. I'm writing about what's in the photos, they have to be in the right place!
I have so many posts at this point that if I printed by blog, it would be like a set of encyclopedias. No one wants that!
DeleteI feel bad for Elisabeth. I would be devastated if I lost my blog. I've been blogging for 15 years now and I reference old posts all the time. Like I recently looked through posts from 2008-2009 to see if I had pics of my nephews using the inflatable "bumper boats" my parents pulled out of storage for Paul when he was there in August. It's such a time capsule of my life as I have never been a journaler, outside of when I studied abroad and religiously journaled at that time.
ReplyDeleteI know. I can't imagine how sad Elisabeth must be feeling. That being said, she hadn't had it quite as long as you and I have had ours, so at least it wasn't years and years and years!
DeleteWhat happened to Elisabeth is quite scary. I have been doing regular backups of my blog for years... I am so paranoid of losing everything. Good job for getting your own backup done!
ReplyDeleteYeah, I guess I have to figure out how to regularly back up my blog. Like, should I do this monthly (I won't)? Yearly? Argh.
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