How to Backup Your Squarespace Website
Backing up a Wordpress website is easy. All you have to do is install a plugin and it will automatically backup your site on a set schedule without any extra thought on your part.
Unfortunately, it’s not so easy to backup a Squarespace website.
The good news is that it’s a lot less likely that anything will happen to your website on Squarespace. Wordpress is notorious for catastrophic incompatibility issues, security breaches, etc., that make it likely you’ll really need that backup at one time or another.
Squarespace is a closed system, which means your site won’t break (unless it’s in Developer Mode, which I don’t recommend) and it’s pretty much immune to hackers, as long as you use two-factor authentication and don’t give access to any malicious individuals.
That said, it’s still a good idea to backup your Squarespace website.
Why?
A catastrophic event wherein your Squarespace site suddenly vanishes, never to be recovered, is extremely unlikely. It’s a lot more likely that you might accidentally delete something essential, like an important snippet of CSS code, a blog post, or your built-in site styles. If that happens, you want to be prepared.
So, without further ado, here are 8 ways to backup your Squarespace website.
Duplicate Your Website
This is by far the easiest way to backup your site. Make a copy of your website by clicking on the three dots next to your website in the Squarespace dashboard. Then, click “Duplicate Site.”
You can also duplicate individual pages on your website by clicking on the gear icon next to the page name in the pages panel. In the popup window, click “Duplicate Page” down near the bottom.
Keep an Extra Copy of Your Content
Write your blog posts and website copy in another program (Google Docs, Word, Pages, etc.) and then copy and paste it into Squarespace. That way you always have a backup copy.
I prefer Ulysses for writing content because it’s a markup editor that copies cleanly into Squarespace. Copying from Google Docs and other rich text editors can result in annoying styling errors that need to be fixed, like extra lines between paragraphs, etc.
Download Your XML File
The XML file is what allows you to transfer your site content from Squarespace to Wordpress. (It will not help you if you want to transfer content from one Squarespace site to another.)
If you import your XML file to a self-hosted Wordpress site, only the text will transfer. If you transfer to a Wordpress.com website, text and images will transfer.
It’s also worth noting that only certain types of content will transfer. Here’s what your XML file will include:
Layout pages
Gallery pages
Project pages
One blog along with all of its posts
Blog comments
Text blocks
Image blocks (Wordpress.com compatible only)
Your XML file will not include:
Product pages
Folders
Index pages
Event pages
Album pages
Cover pages
Additional blogs or their posts
Audio blocks
Video blocks
Product blocks
Drafts
Basically, transferring from Squarespace to Wordpress is a messy piecemeal business.
Oh, and you can’t export an XML file in Squarespace 7.1 at all.
To download your XML file, go to Settings > Advanced > Import/Export and click on Export.
Save Your Images
Since you can’t import your images from Squarespace to a self-hosted Wordpress site, it’s best to keep an extra copy of them. You can keep them on your hard drive, in your Google Drive—wherever you want.
Export Products to a .CSV File
If you sell products, they won’t be exported in your XML file but you can export them as a .csv file. That doesn’t mean they’ll import cleanly into another website builder but at least you’ll have the raw data.
To export your products to a .csv file, go to Commerce > Inventory and click on Export All in the upper righthand corner.
Download Your JSON File
Your JSON file is useful if you ever accidentally change or erase your style settings and need to restore them.
You must be a Squarespace Circle member to download your JSON file in Squarespace 7.0. To do so, go to Design > Site Styles. Scroll down to the bottom of the style panel and click on Export Style Pack (Beta). You can restore your styles at any time by clicking on Import Style Pack (Beta).
There is currently no way to download a site styles file natively in Squarespace 7.1 but you can do it with the SquareWebsites Tools Extension Pro*. You can also use the extension to download your styles in 7.0 if you are not a Circle member.
Copy Your Code Injections and CSS
If you’ve added any custom code injections or CSS to your Squarespace website, keep an extra copy in case you accidentally delete or modify it. I use Sublime Text to write and save code but you can also use TextEdit on a Mac or pretty much any other plain text editor.
Take Screenshots of Your Website
Finally, take full page screenshots of every page on your website (except for blog posts…that would be tedious). This will give you a visual reference in case you ever have to rebuild your site. I use the Full Page Screen Capture Chrome extension for this.
I know that backing up your Squarespace website is a pain in the butt. And I truly wish that Squarespace would make it a whole lot easier and less of a hodgepodge of data points. But there you have it.
If something catastrophic were to happen to your site, you’d have the raw data you need to rebuild it on Squarespace or another platform. That doesn’t mean it would be easy or a quick fix. Again though, that’s an unlikely scenario. Following these steps will prepare you for the more likely scenario of human error causing a whoopsy on your site.
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