Backing up your Blogger blog
Why is it important to backup your blog? You got to protect it from accidental delete (not rare). Another matter to consider is the stability of the blogging and web hosting service and its hardware. Blogger, even though backed up by the giant Google, faced some hiccups recently because of a hardware problem and caused a real scare among bloggers recently. How to backup your blog?
Using Blogger to email you the post you publish
One simple way is to set up your blog so that each post you make is emailed to a chosen email address, preferably specially created for that purpose. Click SETTINGS tab, then Email, and add your chosen email address at BlogSend Address. These, however, will be pure text, and does not include the HTML and that means you will have to reupload your photos and redo you links, etc.
Using Blog Collector
There is an easy way to backup your blog. Download and install Blog Collector Lite (close new window to get back to this page). This is an easy-to-use non-expiring free software. There is a provision to Synchronize Blog, which means that subsequent backups only backup the new updates. When you have collected enough material, you can even choose to publish it as a book, either in Word or PDF format. They also have a paid version.
Using HTTrack to mirror your blog
Another way is to download HTTrack Website Copier (close new window to get back to this page). It allows you to download any WWW site from the Internet to your computer, building recursively all directories, getting HTML, images and other files.
Copying each post into Notepad and saving it somewhere safe
This method will be a bit labourous if you had not done it right from the beginning and have tons of posts. In the post editor, make sure you are in the EDIT HTML mode. Highlight everything inside the post editor window (click inside the window and press ctrl+A), right-click and select copy (or ctrl+C) and then paste it into Notepad (right-click and select paste or press ctrl+V). With this method, you will have all your links, photos, etc backed up.
IMPORTANT: Backing up your blog template
One should not forget to backup the template. To backup the template, sign into Dashboard, select blog, click TEMPLATE, highlight all the template, right-click and save to clipboard. Then paste it into Notepad or NoteTab (close new window to get back to this page). Save it under a file name like blog title-date each time before you make any changes to the template.
What if I had neglected to backup my blog or template
Well, if you have neglected to backup your blog and/or your template, what you will have to resort to is to follow the steps outlined in “How to recover from an unintended delete” (click “BACK” button to get back to this page).
Update: April 24, 2006
Blog Collector Lite has worked well for me because I used the standard Blogger Minima template for my blogs. If you are using standard Blogger templates, you will be able to backup all your posts right up to the beginning. If, however, you are using non-standard non-Blogger templates, or have modified the Blogger template extensively, Blog Collector only backup the posts in the main page. In this case, it is probably better to use HTTrack Website Copier for your backup.