Rocking the new backup

Blogger's new backup feature, using Google Takeout, offers more choices about how to safeguard your blog. ¶ 

And, it's a big change. ¶ 

Maybe my story will help you to devise a backup work flow that suits you.

If you are actively blogging, with new posts and/or theme modifications, you should have some system of regular backups in place.

Backup has changed. I recommend regular automated backups, plus spot backups when editing a blog theme.

My work flow, below, is just one possible way to use the new system.

The Takeout backup

Google Takeout can download a copy of everything in your Google account, from your chats to your maps data.

But if you enter Takeout from Blogger settings (Manage Blog > Backup content), the process will only download data linked to your blogs.

All the blogs in your account, at once.

These include the feed.atom file, which has your blog contents, and the theme-layouts.xml file, which has your blog theme.

This backup is live in the Manage Blog section of your dashboard settings as of early July. It replaces backup of a single blog-specific xml file.

However, backing up your theme from the Theme page still backs up a single theme xml file. This is useful if you are customizing your theme.

Backing up before theme changes is a best practice.

Timely and regular

The first time I used Takeout for blog backup, I opted for automated backup. 

Every two months for the next year, Google will send me an email telling me my backup is ready, with a link to the page to download it.

As someone who has tried, and sometimes failed, to remember to back up quarterly, the automatic backups are a real boon.

Drinking from the firehose

Even if you only have one blog, the new Blogger backup can be big. It includes every image you have ever uploaded into every blog, every video, and a lot of other things.

You might want some or all of these things, but for backup purposes you only need two of the files.

I already have copies of all the photos in my blog, so I do not need those.

My collection of blogs includes some test blogs that I do not need to back up at all.

But I have two active blogs that always seem to have new posts, pages, and sometimes changes to blog theme.

My workflow saves only the two files (per blog) that would be essential to restoring the blog. I archive them with all the older versions.

The only files I want.

Arguably, the archiving I do, in which I retain backups from years ago, is overkill. It would not be unreasonable for you to just keep the most recent backup.

But this is about me, right? And the two files are not large.

Two files per blog

Those files are going to be in the decompressed downloaded folder, which will always be called "Takeout" (unless renamed by your operating system, e.g. "Takeout2").

Inside that folder, another that will always be called "Blogs" will contain a set of folders with the names of the blogs in my account.

Inside each of those folders will be two files that will always be called "feed.atom" (posts, pages, and comments) and "theme-layouts.xml" (blog theme). 

In the case of this blog, I will rename them to something like "Blog_Too-Clever_8-25-25.atom" and "Theme_Too-Clever_8-25-25.xml."

The I'll move them to another folder on my hard drive where I archive all of the Too Clever backups. 

The big picture

I'll do a similar thing with my other blog, renaming and moving the files.

Finally, I'll just delete the rest of the download. And done.

This will save a snapshot of my blogs every two months.

My whole computer gets regular automated backups, including my archive of Blogger backups. So this routine is proof against most mishaps.

Back to you

Maybe a better plan for you would be something like "keep the full download and replace it with a new one every two months."

It would certainly be faster and easier, and very probably all you need.

Maybe you want to automate the backup to Google Drive or other service, which is an option in Google Takeout.

Maybe you have yet another plan.

I'm not modeling what you should do. I am modeling how to think about what you should do.

Unless you have stopped blogging—unless nothing is changing on your blog any more—regular backups are a best practice.

The charming musicians that illustrate this report are designed by Wannapik