Thursday, July 21, 2022

Copying all the posts from one blog to another

This article is about how to copy all the posts from one blog to another, using Blogger.  There is a separate article about copying individual posts, or pages, from one blog to another.

(Last updated July 2022)


To copy all the Posts from one blog to another, you need to export them from the first blog, and import the file that was created into the second file.

If you want to totally replace the contents of the destination blog with the contents of the source blog, then you should delete the existing posts from the destination blog before you import the file.  (NB   Delete posts by going to the Posting / Edit Posts screen, and pressing the Delete button that is beside the post.   Don't delete the entire blog, or you will lose access to the URL).


Follow these steps to copy all posts from one blog to another

1  Log in to Blogger.

2  Go to the export tab from the  Settings tab, and look in the Manage Blog section

3  Click on Back up content.

4  Your computer will download a file.   For Windows users, it will probably be put in the My Documents / Downloads file.  Or your system may use another place, or it may ask you where to put it.   Whatever happens, you will need to know where this file is saved to.

5  Open the blog that you want to move the posts to
(You may need to log out and in again, or perhaps just switch to different browser or tab)

Delete (using Posting / Edit Posts) any Posts that are already there, but which you don't want in the refreshed blog.

6  Go to the Settings tab, and look in the Manage Blog section.  Click on Import content.  

7  Choose whether or not to automatically publish all imported posts.  
Only tick the box if you DO want the posts automatically imported.   If you don't tick it, the posts will be loaded, but with have status of Draft, so won't be visible by readers until you publish them.




8  Click Import .

Check that the import worked successfully, by looking at the blog, and also at the list of posts under Edit Posts:  are the right number of posts there? do they have the right labels?

10   If you chose to not automatically publish the posts, then you will need to work through them and publish (or not as appropriate.  To do this, click the Manage link in the Dashboard > Posts screen, select one or more posts and then use the publish icon to make them live, or the delete one to remove them from your blog:




Results

IMG redCowRoadworks4586All the posts and pages from the source blog will be copied to the destination blog.

Many of the post characteristics will be the same as in the original blog.  This includes:
  • title
  • post contents
  • published-date and time
  • label(s)
  • post-author.

Pages don't have a post-date, so they will all have a create date set to the date of the import, and will be at the top of the list in the Pages tab on your Blogger-dashboard

Any comments from the source blog will also be copied over - sometimes it takes a few hours for the links for them to be re-established properly.

The URL for each post will be based on the URL of the blog you have imported them into and the publication-date that the posts had in the source blog - for example:
www.YourNewBlogName.blogspot.com /2009/05/name-based-on-post-title.html
All statistics will be lost:  the post-count of your posts will be zero.

Any internal links in the blog will still point to the post in the old blog
For example this link points to a popular article in Blogger-HAT.  
If I export-and-imported this post into a new blog, the link would still point to the same place, ie the post in Blogger-HAT - not to the post in the new blog.

Any pictures, videos etc in the old blog will still be in the same place that they were in (Picasa-web-albums, YouTube, Google Videos etc).

If you have imported more than the number of posts that Blogger allows per day (currently 50 I think) then to make any more posts today you will need to complete the captcha-test (ie entering the letters in the funny-shaped word).   This will go away approximately 24 hours after you last enter more that the maximum-posts-per-day.


Importing to the same blog

If you try to import posts into the same blog that you exported them from, Blogger will not import any posts, and give you an error message.

If you do want to do this (eg to create a duplicate set of posts), then do the export, change some small detail of the original posts' title or date/time (you will have to do each on individually), and then do the import.



Related Articles

The Difference between Posts and Pages

Moving individual posts, or pages, from one blog to another

Converting Posts into Pages

Moving some posts form one blog to another 

Deleting blogs and blog-posts

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42 comments:

  1. Thank you! Got it on the first try and if you know me, that's a miracle. Thanks again!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Will this delete from the blog you are exporting from? If so is there a way to keep the posts on the exported blog?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hi Katie

    No, this won't have any effect on the blog you are exporting from (really the article should be called Copying ... not Moving!)

    You need to sort it out separately, after your export and import to another blog is successful.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Great site awesome instruction gets you to the point. Thank you!

    ReplyDelete
  5. This looks helpful. Thank you. I have two questions:
    1) When I copy my posts from A to B, will that include the comments people have left?
    2) What I really want to do is keep my latest posts public while making earlier ones private. I understand the only way to do that on Blogger is to run two separate blogs. If I make blog B private and delete the earlier posts from blog A, which remains public, will that achieve what I want?

    ReplyDelete
  6. Hi Philip

    I'm afraid no, it doesn't take the comments, only the posts.

    The approach you've described will work, the other approach is to simply edit the older posts and save them as draft: that will keep the comments, should you decide to publish the posts again.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Mary,

      I'm confused...in your article, you wrote: "Any comments from the source blog will also be copied over - sometimes it takes a few hours for the links for them to be re-establshed properly."

      But now you're stating comments will NOT be carried over?

      Or am I misunderstanding? Thanks!

      Delete
  7. what if you have a mac, because i have one and its not downloading.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Katie, are you using the new interface? If you are, try switching back to the old one. I've found that sometimes the new one doesn't start downloading when it should.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Hello ............... is there that can help me?
    me got blogspot and could not longer access it because I forgot gmail. and i want to import these blogs but could not because the setting is my blog site feed. please help me?

    ReplyDelete
  10. You are WONDERFUL! Thanks a lot from Australia! xoxo

    ReplyDelete
  11. How do I import posts from Blog B onto a specific page in Blog A? Blog B (the old blog) only had posts, but I've added pages to Blog A. I want to put all the posts from Blog B onto a specific page in Blog A.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Posts don't really go into "pages" in Blogger, but you can fake it using Labels (described in more detail here: http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2010/12/how-to-put-put-posts-into-your-pages-in.html)

      So you could import them all, then find them and apply an appropriate label to them.

      Delete
  12. What happens to the old blog? Is it still floating out there with duplicate content of my new blog? Can I hide it? Can I use the old URL or is it the eternal source of what I've copied over into the new blog (all the self-referring links, photos, etc)? Thanks!
    This was the clearest article out there, thank you! Just getting up the courage to try it--just need to know this last piece of info since I don't want to lose all the internal links put would like to retire the old URL for now.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. After you do the copy, the old blog is still there with the original content.

      You can go and delete the posts, and you should if you want to avoid duplicate content. Or you could just make it private.

      If there are any internal links in the posts, they will still point to the articles in the old blog, so you need to change them over. But photos etc live in Picasa, not in the old blog, so they won't be affected if you delete.

      Delete
  13. It keeps saying no post imported. 35 files found in the imported file. Now what? I can't figure this out.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Great explanation. I wonder if the imported posts, when published, will show up in my follower's Google reader or email via feedburner. It would overwhelm them, I'm sure. Perhaps, since they have a 'prior' date stamp they will not? Thank you.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Good question Petra. They will definitely show up in your Feedburner email subscribers posts - but they only get one message per day which contains all the posts, so it may not be too bad. I'm pretty sure they'll also appear in the RSS feed too, with the date of posting not the date you backdate them too.

      Delete
    2. Thank you for your help. I will have to go back to the drawing board and figure out a way around it. Blessings!

      Delete
    3. I think I will try to import and leave unpublished and then use labels to publish as pages. Am in the process of ironing it all out. If you can help, great. If not, you've been a great help already. Thanks!

      Delete
  15. I followed your instructions, but when importing, I get an error message saying "Sorry, the import failed due to a server error. The error code is bX-kyijnx". I've googled for a solution but can't find one. I am trying to transfer from one blogspot to another blogspot. Any suggestions?

    ReplyDelete
  16. Thank you! I just followed your instructions and it worked perfectly.

    ReplyDelete
  17. The export/import part worked... but the design of my blog is not at all the same, it looks terrible, and it would take ages to get it fixed. anyone know what I did wrong and can I do something different? (I didn't delete the first blog) Thanks

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You did nothing wrong: the technique described copies posts only - not the template.

      Unfortunately Blogger doesn't provide any easy way to move the design: you copy try copying the template from old to new, but even then it doesn't pick up the widget settings.

      I'm afraid the only answer I know is to manually apply all the changes :-(

      Delete
  18. Help! I've followed the export/import steps. When I get to the import stage, it gets stuck in "writing blog posts". It's been going over an hour-surely it shouldn't take that long?! (Only 13 posts.) It also shows a new captcha-test every once in a while... :s
    ps Your blog has been very helpful. Thank you!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Nevermind... Re-tried it and it worked no problem, easily under a minute. :)
      I did everything exactly the same way. So, it must have been a bug on the day.

      Once again, thank you for doing this blog ~ it's my go-to place for blogging tips and fixes. :)

      Delete
    2. Glad you've got it sorted. With Google tools, you will sometimes find that a problem is quietly fixed overnight.

      Delete
  19. I have downloaded the original blog to my hard drive and deleted the old blog. I Created a new blog and imported. The new blog shows none of the pics from the imported blog posts everything else, text and videos are there. Did I do something wrong or will this just take time to complete importing?

    ReplyDelete
  20. This worked great but when I search for a post in the new blog for something I imported it says nothing found

    ReplyDelete
  21. How to export selected posts from blogger?

    ReplyDelete
  22. Thanks for the info. I finally move my old blog post to my new blog...

    ReplyDelete
  23. So how do you make an archive copy of someone else's blog? You know, because people take stuff down, but you want to retain a copy.

    ReplyDelete
  24. Did this in one quick shot on my Mac. It's great! No one else had helpful advice such as this and they all said I had to copy the posts one at a time, so I really appreciate it. :)

    ReplyDelete
  25. Can I export few blog posts instead of the entire blog?

    ReplyDelete
  26. For some reason, all I can find is an 'Import Content' and 'Back up content' buttons. Where is the 'Export content' button?

    ReplyDelete
  27. Good information, but still I have question is that if I delete my old blogger account which my blog is transferred then what about images of blog post ?? how transfer all blog data with images placed on blogpost to new blogger account???

    Please help me...I am still wondering..!!!

    ReplyDelete
  28. Hi, Marry thanks for the information but a question in my mind, does it also copy my post views or not

    ReplyDelete
  29. So how do you make an archive copy of someone else's blog? You know, because people take stuff down, but you want to retain a copy.

    ReplyDelete