Backing up Squarespace sites

Last night I wrote about the twinges over (at some potential imaginary time in the future,) lost website data and my reminder to back up. Dena's comment asking how to back up a blog got me thinking about the varying layers of protection needed by different people to make them feel secure. And I realized that for the most part, I have no qualms whatsever that I'm going to lose the data of either of my websites. Particularly where my hosting provider is concerned. The security measures taken by Squarespace to ensure that my site is not only accessible at all times, but also that my data is secure in the event of a major catastrophe, keeps me feeling plenty secure.

It's the handing over of my information to anyone other than myself that makes me back my sites up. Not that I worry my data will be lost, but that I need to have access to those backups too. Long before discovering The Joy of Squarespace, I always, always had backups. Why should these easy-as-pie sites be any different? It's got something to do with my internal gauge of personal responsibility for my content. (And protectiveness, perhaps. I wrote it. Shouldn't I have a copy somewhere besides the one on that server far, far away?)

So with that cleared up, I'll share a quick, mini-tutorial with anyone interested who uses the same host, in case you haven't stumbled across it yourself.

To periodically backup your Squarespace site:

1. File Management 101 - Go ahead and set up a designated directory in your website-related folders. Label it clearly enough that you'll still know just what it is weeks from now when you think of it again.
   
2. Log into your site's Admistration panel.
   
3. In the two rows of administrative links, click on "Resources" on the top row, then from the second row, click "Site Backup." (Yes. It really is that simple.)
4. Click on the can't-miss-it-sized "Download Squarespace Site Backup (XML) box.
   
5. Save this .xml file in the folder you set up at the start of this exercise.
   
6. Your Inner Control Freak will sleep a little more easily. Because you've now got a backup of all that text you ever put out there on your site. (No doubt your photos are already tidily filed in a similar fashion. Right?)
   
7. Ta da!

Hope your Friday is grand like mine's starting off!

Comments

[Stevii]

Hello Melody

Thanks for showing us not so savvy website creators the way to backup files. I understand all the rest of the steps but I am not sure how to get started by setting up a directory. This is step number 1. Please help!

[Melody]

Hi Stevii - I just mean a folder...in the area where you file your documents using windows. "My documents" perhaps. In mine, I have "my documents" >>"web">> then directories for all my web projects, including my own. Hope that helps!

[Angelo]

I managed to find a way to backup the File Storage items using a Firefox add-on called DownThemAll, and posted a little tutorial on my blog: http://blog.angelostavrow.com/?p=153

Hope this helps other Squarespace users.