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Importing / Exporting Blog Contents Now In Production

For a long time, blog owners have been asking for the ability to transfer blog contents - comments and posts - from blog to blog.

Last week, Blogger announced that feature recently added to Production Blogger.
Today’s release features a brand new graduate from the Blogger in Draft testing ground: Import and Export for Blogger blogs.




There it is - in Blog Tools - at the top of the Settings - Other screen.



You have 2 links, right there in Settings - Other - "Blog Tools".

  1. Import Blog lets you import comments and posts, previously exported from any blog, and currently in a file on your computer, into this blog.
  2. Export Blog lets you export the all published comments and posts, from this blog, into a file on your computer.

It's not a complicated process.

  1. Export the entire contents - comments and posts - from the first blog.
  2. Import the entire contents - comments and posts - into the second blog. Do not publish automatically.
  3. From the Posts menu, select imported posts which you wish published, and Publish Selected.

Right now, the Export / Import process works within Blogger, LiveJournal, MovableType, and WordPress. This won't do anything with the template - you still have to backup the template, separately.

It will give you a quick ability to move all Published (Blogger Commenting hosted) comments and posts from one Blogger blog to another, assuming that you can administer both blogs. This may be useful for some bloggers who wish to transfer blog content to another blogging service. Don't go exporting from this blog, and importing back to this same blog, without understanding the limitations.

Note that Blogger Comments are exported with posts. If the blog use Google+ Comments, however, comments will not export - and cannot be transferred across a blog URL change. Whether you export / import, or simply re publish, Google+ Comments remain with the original URL.

With a blog of any significant size, it would be wise to import, then publish, in two separate steps. Get everything imported, and check out the Posts list under "Imported", before Publishing.

For more details about this exciting ability, see Roberto's Report: Importing and Exporting - An Overview.


(Update 2016/02): The Blogger "Export / Import" feature is now known as "Import & back up".

Comments

Your blog is a source of help, always.

We have a general question related to a fear we like to call our Exportaphobia.

We just aren't clear if Exporting a blog ONLY copies the blog posts (and comments? and images?) to another blog, or if the posts (and comments? and images?) are actually MOVED TO the new blog and REMOVED FROM the original blog. This is how we understand the term Export -- you have it here, you send it there, and you don't have it here any longer.

We know. This is probably a dumb question, but nobody on our blog team has been able to figure it out, and our Exportaphobia prevents us from even attempting to play around with it.
Unknown said…
Hi, I have a problem with blogger blog export. When I download the blog, the raw xml file doesn't show some of the older posts. Similarly, the same posts are also missing from the RSS feed. I do not use FTP publishing. Is this some sort of known bug or am I making some mistake? Thanks a lot.
Sandy Aptecker said…
I just want to combine 2 blogs, no comments on either, I can't follow your directions, I don't want to save either blog first. Can you give me the simplest possible directions? I am new to this whole thing and not computer sharp.
Nitecruzr said…
Sandy,

Simplest possible directions are provided in BHF: How Do I?, or in Nitecruzr Dot Net - Blogging.
Roo said…
Worked like a charm. If there's any question as to whether this messes up the formatting in the new blog (at least from one blogger site to another blogger site) - it does NOT. Piece of cake. Thanks!
mochalox said…
Awesome sauce! This worked perfectly!!!!
CherLynn57 said…
Thank you for the clear instructions. Much appreciated!

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