How to Back Up your Blogger Blog!

Why is it important to backup your blog? Well, imagine all those sweet little pictures and posts disappearing right before your eyes due to a glitch in your blogs server! (Note: this tutorial is for Blogger Blogs)

Confessions of a Homeschooler has become the complete journal of our homeschooling journey and proof that we actually do something other than eat bon-bons and watch soaps all day.

So at this point, the thought of my blog getting accidentally deleted would cause me to curl up in a ball in the corner of the closet and cry. Which would immediately result in my children sticking their fingers under the door in an attempt to reach me while at the same time trying to talk to me through the bottom crack and no one wants that.

So how do I backup my blog? Here’s a list of ways to give yourself some comfort and security that all your precious posts, and the cool navbar that took you 3 days to complete won’t disappear in a puff of smoke.

1. Back up your Template!

Click on “Layout” tab then click on the “Edit HTML” tab. At the top you’ll see a link to “Download Full Template”. Click to download your full template. This will backup what your blog looks like only, not the posts.

2. Back up your POSTS!

Click on the “Settings” tab in blogger, then click on the “Export blog” option. This will back up your posts to your hard drive in the event blogger crashes. It does not download the images, but the links in the posts are still there. The images for Blogger are stored on Flickr.

3. Windows Live Writer:

I use Windows Live Writer to write my posts, it’s much easier than dealing with blogger and it saves a copy of each post on your hard drive. I use it because I like it, and because I have a backup of each post on my hard drive including publish date, labels, and photos.

Check out Windows Live Writer here!

4. Email subscription:

Sign up to receive your own blog posts via email! Store these emails on your hard drive as an additional back up of your posts.

If you don’t have the email subscription widget, get one, otherwise your readers have to remember to check your blog everyday, and who has time for that? I rely on my email subscriptions to do the work for me.

If you don’t want to add an email subscription link to your blog, but still want your posts emailed to your inbox, click on your “Settings” tab and then click on the “Email & Mobile” tab. In the top box called “BlogSend Address” you can enter your email address here to receive emails for each of your posts. (While you’re at it you can enter the emails of your 10 closes friends, you know, because you know they really WANT to read your blog, they just haven’t signed up yet.)

5. Blog Collector:

BlogCollector: This site is cool, you can back it up images and all, then publish it to a book which would be cool! From what I understand this option works best with Blogger Minima templates. If you have altered your blog template quite a bit, you may want to try HTTrack website copier instead. Sadly, I’ve tweaked my site way too much and Blog Collector isn’t working for me just yet…

6. Turn your blog into a scrapbook!

Honey from Sunflower Schoolhouse sent me a great link that you can use to turn your blog into a printed scrapbook! The website is called Scrapbook Blogger. They will print and bind your blog posts into a coffee table style book!

7. External Hard Drive: This one is for everything, not just your beloved blog! Everyone should have an external hard drive that you can back up documents on. You can get a fairly inexpensive USB external hard drive, I like these:

• FreeAgent 640GB EHD
• FreeAgent 1TB EHD – (I have this one, but smaller)

8. Back up regularly: The best way for me to remember to backup my files is to set a reminder in my MSOutlook. If you don’t have MSOutlook or some other email reminding software, you can sign up for a Google Calendar Account. It comes with a calendar and will email you reminders! Then make sure to do Steps 1 and 2 regularly, especially if you make a change to your template.

9. Breath a sigh of relief:

Now, go relax confident that you’ve protected your memories!