Backup Your Wordpress.com Blogs in Three steps

July 31st, 2008 · 45 Comments · blogging, wordpress

Backup your Blog in 3 steps I got an email from Poonam last month “Tell me how should I take backup of my wordpress blog, in case wordpress blocks my blog or something?” she asked.

Yes, what if something happens to your blog ? You need a backup right ? Okay, just three steps, let us generate and download a backup of your wordpress.com blog.

1 On you dashboard, click “Manage”
2 Now, “Export”
3 Now, “Download Export file”

Okay, just three steps, let us generate and download a backup of your wordpress.com blog.

You will get an xml file. Now, save your back up somewhere ( and don’t forget where you saved it Okay ? ). You can save it on your computer or attach it to an email and keep it on your email account …. hmmm what is your choice ?

Now, How to Restore your Blog from Backup

Remember one thing before you do this. You can not restore individual posts this way ( unless you have downloaded author specific files, - ie, if you have more than one author for the blog ). Now, read on

1: Click “Manage”
2: Now, “Import”
3: Select “Wordpress:
4: Click “Browse” and locate the backup file
5: Now, “Upload file and Import”

Done !!

Now, what if you need a back up of a post that you accidentally deleted ?

Hmm there is a way to do get a backup copy. Simply subscribe to your own rss feed on your rss reader. When you need to restore a particular post which is missing or deleted, browse through your feed entries and get it … and yes, make sure that “For each article in a feed, show” is set to “full text” here … Settings > Reading

Is this tough ?

45 responses so far ↓

1 Niyaz // Jul 31, 2008 at 11:20 am

The problem is that we cannot backup other files like images using this method.
2 dinu // Jul 31, 2008 at 11:26 am

@ Niyaz

That’s right … I always keep my images on flickr or some other location, and then link here … I learned this lesson when I changed my domain first.. all my images were gone .. now, whatever happens, I get images back
3 xylene // Jul 31, 2008 at 2:31 pm

cool, there was somesite which will convert our blog into pdf. Any idea which one?
4 dinu // Jul 31, 2008 at 2:32 pm

http://www.expresspdf.com/ConvertHtmlToPdf.aspx
5 vishesh // Jul 31, 2008 at 4:53 pm

lol thanks for the info…backing up now actually i used to use the show all post option when i was in blogger and copy everything …but i didn’t how to do it in WP
6 dinu // Jul 31, 2008 at 5:02 pm

@ Vishesh

Cool
7 Joel // Jul 31, 2008 at 8:36 pm

Well, useful for newbies.. well written
8 dinu // Jul 31, 2008 at 9:05 pm

@ Joel

Thanks I wrote it for newbies not for techies like u buddy
9 Priya // Jul 31, 2008 at 9:47 pm

Hey! Damn cool!! Thanks for sharing!! Will do it right away!!
10 dinu // Jul 31, 2008 at 9:51 pm

@ Priya

Glad to know that you liked it
11 Rahul // Aug 1, 2008 at 6:38 am

Thanks ,
very useful for a newbie like me.

P.S. Blogrolled u.
12 Philip // Aug 1, 2008 at 6:57 am

thanks buddy, i needed this.
13 dinu // Aug 1, 2008 at 9:34 am

@ Rahul

Thanks + Welcome

@ Philip

np
14 Poonam // Aug 1, 2008 at 9:50 am

I like the font in this new theme. This is good one, stick to it. And yes, I too think it is important to subscribe to your own feeds, just in case.
15 dinu // Aug 1, 2008 at 9:54 am

@ Poonam

Thanks .. and yes, I am going to stick with this one and may be I will move to an upgraded version of this theme …. not sure ..
16 arvind // Aug 1, 2008 at 12:13 pm

wow …so i can actually have an back up..
thats great thanks…
17 dinu // Aug 1, 2008 at 12:23 pm

@ Arvind

np
18 Anshul // Aug 1, 2008 at 3:11 pm

I might be wrong since I am not that technically sound….

hmm….yes, I was wrong…

Sorry…
19 dinu // Aug 1, 2008 at 3:12 pm

@ Anshul

Is it about the rss feed comment I left on your blog ?
20 Anshul // Aug 1, 2008 at 3:20 pm

Naah…I have fixed that, there was a typo in the feed url. This was something related to this post only….then I realized that what I was thinking was also wrong or somewhat impossible.
21 Anshul // Aug 1, 2008 at 3:22 pm

Also, I forgot to thank you for reporting that feed thingy + I also forgot to put some smiley in the first comment…
22 dinu // Aug 1, 2008 at 3:24 pm

@ Anshul

Cool
and u r welcome buddy and yea special thanks for the :) s
23 Anshul // Aug 1, 2008 at 3:27 pm

Yeah… :), you are welcome too…
24 Suda // Aug 8, 2008 at 2:55 pm

Good for newbies, but I think when I read WP FAQ first, they ha warned us that its not the way to backup everything and it puts too much load on server if people start using it madly. But still its useful
25 dinu // Aug 8, 2008 at 3:09 pm

@ Suda

Can you send me the link ?
I always use this way to backup and I could restore it easily .. hmmm is there any other way to backup on wordpress.com ?
26 dinu // Aug 8, 2008 at 3:10 pm

http://lorelle.wordpress.com/2005/12/19/backing-up-your-wordpresscom-blog/ Read this too
27 Suda // Aug 8, 2008 at 3:14 pm

I found a way to backup and import *blogroll* from one blog to another or just backup. May be you already know this.
go to http://yourblog.wordpress.com/wp-links-opml.php where *yourblog* is your own blog URL.

For example in dinu’s case, his blogroll can be exported as OPML file using link http://www.offlineblog.net/wp-links-opml.php

P.S> Dinu, if you think this is a useful tip and people are gonna miss this comment being on old post, you can add it in your TIPS as usual, all people eagerly read them
28 Suda // Aug 8, 2008 at 3:36 pm

This is the FAQ entry I was talking about. Sorry for late reply, I am using Airtel GPRS and you can imagine the speed.
I am using HTTRACK Website Copier from ages and its really effective. I think I will write a post/tutorial for it soon. It won’t help in moving data to new site but its the best way we can backup a website i.e. downloading it as it is to local machine.

Also that PDF conversion site is superb, it converts page with all images included. Not the page as it looks though, it takes just content in PDF but its worth the trouble.

See ya. I will come back later in evening to check your reply, now going, bye.
29 dinu // Aug 8, 2008 at 3:39 pm

@ Suda

Sure .. will do
30 dinu // Aug 8, 2008 at 3:45 pm

@ Suda

I read the FAQ .. they are asking you not to do this because of 2 reasons.

1: It uses a lot of server resources … hmm think about a few guys on the same server doing this process at the server time and crashing the server with other hundreds of blogs on it ..
2: They have their own backups …

and they are right on the first one.. but for the second one, my thought is .. it is always good to have your own backup
31 Backup Your Blogroll - It’s Easy !! | Blog of Small Things // Aug 8, 2008 at 7:55 pm

[...] for your feedback on my previous post, about backing up your wordpress blog. Most of them, were extra tips. Here they [...]
32 Anjali // Aug 19, 2008 at 8:27 am

Hey,
Thanks for the info! I’m going to do it right now.. =]
33 dinu // Aug 19, 2008 at 8:41 am

@ Anjali

cool .. glad to know that
34 Shoban // Aug 19, 2008 at 1:07 pm

Use wordpress automatic upgrade http://techie-buzz.com/wordpress-plugins/wordpress-automatic-upgrade-12-release.html

Good one for newbies who are worried about upgrading wordpress. Can be used for back up as well.
35 dinu // Aug 19, 2008 at 1:30 pm

@ Shoban

I don’t believe in auto upload .. I use the option in the control panel to upgrade, or do manual upgrade… hmm yea, good for laZy bugs
36 Chirax // Sep 26, 2008 at 10:01 am

Great Thanks
37 dinu // Sep 26, 2008 at 10:06 am

@ Chirax

ha !! so bringing this post to homepage makes difference
u r welcome my friend
38 Nominations So Far… « Visceral Observations // Sep 30, 2008 at 1:37 pm

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39 Apar // Oct 4, 2008 at 11:13 pm

I do the HTTRACK Website Copier too for backing up my blogs. Will look into the PDF link you have given.
40 dinu // Oct 6, 2008 at 10:19 am

@ Apar

will try that thanks for the info
41 Final List of Nominated Posts « Visceral Observations // Oct 22, 2008 at 4:29 pm

[...] Backup Your WordPress.com Blogs in Three Steps Author: Dinsan Watermark Tutorial Author: Suda Noiseware: My Recommendations Author: Suda Pinhole Scope/Camera Author: Sakhi Building Relationships with Important or Interesting People Author: Shefaly How to Create Web Headers Author: Ashish (Geekwrestler) Make Your Blog Independent From Hosting Author: Vaibhav How to Handle Unwanted Phone Calls Author: Hershey Desai How to Spot a Good Personal Trainer Author: Shefaly How to be Writer and Sleep Like French Author: LaBeletteRouge How to Get Away With Buying a Playboy Circa Author: Paul How to Turn On Sam Author: Crazy Sam Moving Aint Easy, But Sure is Rewarding Author: Laksh How to Impress Fairer Sex Author: Oxy 7 Tips Before You Buy Your First DSLR Author: Sandeep The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Lose a Girl Author: Dinesh Babu [...]
42 Anish K.S // Oct 29, 2008 at 3:16 pm

Dinu,

Hosting Images in Other sites, i think not good, I think such images not indexed in Google. Am i correct ?.
43 dinu // Oct 29, 2008 at 3:19 pm

@ Anish K.S

not sure … but still, SEO wise, its not so good ..
44 Anish K.S // Oct 29, 2008 at 3:25 pm

Some times i am using pages.googles.com for image hosting.
45 unixwayoflife // Nov 13, 2008 at 3:21 am

Wouldn’t it be great to backup a wordpress.com blog in three steps automatically?
Of, course it would

I wrote a small perl script to do it. Here is the post: http://unixwayoflife.wordpress.com/2008/11/08/automated-wordpress-com-backup/