How to Backup Your Blogger Site Completely - 2019 Edition

Well, if you're like me you have been putting off getting fresh backups of your Blogger site content, template, images and videos. It's amazing that Blogger has been around almost two decades and through that journey it has transformed its templates while modifying the underlying infrastructure to support it. Google has moved much of your content to newer services typically without you knowing it.

That is why it is time to take some fresh backups. But, be aware, many don't realize that your content is spread across different components--template, posts and comments, images and videos--so if you just had been using the single 'Backup' button you were not getting everything.

Let's start!

Step1: Backup your Template

Though this isn't totally necessary, you should backup your template separately just to make recreating your blog easier. Step 2 also backs up your template with your content but having them separate is a good idea. Be sure to create a backup folder somewhere for all of your site content. I typically use a Dropbox folder so it gets automatically backed up offline.

In your Blogger editor select 'Theme' and click the 'Backup/Restore' button in the upper right as shown below:

You will now see a popup screen to backup your template. Just click the 'Download theme' button and save it on your main drive or backup drive folder:

The file will have a name like theme-4829847293492863492873.xml.

Step 2: Backup Your Post and Comments Content

If you need to recreate your blog for any reason you're going to want all of the content you currently have from all posts, pages and associated comments. Just choose 'Settings/Other' and press the 'Back up Content' button:

 

A small pop-up will appear that prompts you to save all content across the site:

 

Just select the 'Save to your computer' button (you might see a browser popup that says 'Leave Page' or 'Stay on Page' - if you do, press the 'Leave Page' button). You will then get a prompt to save your file under a name like 'blog-11-10-2018.xml' which will contain everything. Be sure to save that in the same backup folder you created in Step 1.

Are we done? No, most people forget they need to backup their images as well.

|

Step 3: Backup Blogger Images

There was a time when Google purchased Blogger that all of your blog images were saved in Picasa. Google retired Picasa in 2016 and now your images are stored on a Google site called 'Album Archive' which is where all Google+, Photos, Blogger and Hangout images are stored. Simply navigate a new browser window to https://get.google.com/albumarchive/.

Now, depending on how much you use Google you might see a lot of images and folders on the default site like this:

Be sure to click on the 'Photos from Blogger'.  If you have multiple blogs on your account you will then see a number of folders each with the blog name like this:

 

Find your blog image folder you're attempting to backup and click on it like I have circled in the image above. You will end up in the image folder of your blog like this:

If you've noticed I've circled the three vertical dots in the upper right. Just click on that and a small window will pop up allowing you to select 'Download Album'. Simply select that menu item--a new webpage will pop up and then the dialog save all images under your blog name.zip (in my case it is Blogger Tips Pro.zip).  All your blog images are saved in the zip file. Save it in the same directory as Steps 1 and 2.

Step 4: Backup your Blogger Videos and Misc Media

Are we done yet? Yes and no, there is one last possible backup you need to do. Most of you probably have never used the video upload function in Blogger. But, Blogger has always had the option to upload video directly into posts and pages. These videos used to be saved in Picasa. However, in 2016 Google moved all directly uploaded video files to YouTube. The catch is that you can't see them directly in your YouTube account.

Digging deeper into how Blogger references directly uploaded videos--I found that google redirects to an odd URL like:

"https://r6---sn-vgqs7nl7.googlevideo.com/videoplayback?id=9b1137e71d583fcd&itag=18&source=blogger&mm=31&mn=sn-vgqs7nl7&ms=au&mv=m&pl=18&ei=-WnnW6q3NcuJuAWJsYTIAQ&susc=bl&mime=video/mp4&dur=7.058..."

I'm sure this looks like a lot of nonsense to most - but, the key part is that videos are located at googlevideo.com (just a front for YouTube) and there is no direct way to get to these as backups. The good news is that in the May 2018 post of Blogger Buzz they noted "Video Management: With our new management interface, you can easily download and remove videos you’ve uploaded."

If you didn't backup your original video when you authored it you can attempt to go to your browser cache after you play the video from the post and find the file in the temporary cache of Chrome, Firefox or Edge (I found mine easily in Firefox but had to add the .MP4 extension to the file). That is beyond the scope of this tutorial, however.  Hopefully, you used YouTube instead all this time within your posts and your videos are safe there.

Finally, if you remember some years ago I had posts on how to add MP3 files to your blog. My choice was to save them on Google Sites which still exists today in 2018. This is only a reminder that you can go back to https://sites.google.com and find the folder you saved your MP3 files in. There is a simple download link next to each file in your sites 'files' folder.

That's it! You're backed up! Don't hold your breath, however. Google might alter some of these steps yet again in the future!