Blogger Backup Utility 1.0.1.6 Beta
I used to keep backups of entries of this blog in text files until I found this nifty little freeware by Greg Duncan on CodePlex. For Blogger users only!
The obligatory screenshot which is too small to be of any use 
It’s really simple to use. You enter your Blogger ID and password, select the blog you wish to backup, enter a backup directory and click Backup Posts to save your posts (and optionally, comments) to XML files on your own computer.
There are options to overwrite existing backups as well as to denote which posts are to be backed up by specifying a date range. Although the caption reads “Only new posts since …” when you specify a date range, the software actually uses the modifcation date and not creation date of your posts when deciding whether to back up a particular post.
Before you start saying silly things like “It’s too good to be true!”, please note the following issues.
- It currently only saves your posts in XML files (other formats like HTML and PDF are pending) which means it will take relatively longer as compared to plaintext files in the event that you want to actually do something with your backups. At least all the relevant metadata like author, creation date, modification date, labels are available in the XML files.
- It requires the .NET Framework. No .NET Framework means no Blogger Backup Utility.
- Backup XML files are prepended with the modification date of each post which makes it impossible to sort and find the backup for a certain post by title without using searches. Easy to find posts chronologically though.
- You still have to manually back up your images. This is not exactly an limitation of thie software because this software was not written to be a full-fledged blog backup solution but it’s something to keep in mind.
Download Blogger Backup Utility from CodePlex.
Tags: Blogger Software
Thanks for the comments and I’m glad you liked it.
I wrote this utility cause I couldn’t imagine the pain if my 2000+ posts were nuked for some reason. Years of effort gone? No way. So the app came to be.
I’ve gotten some pretty cool free stuff off the Net over the years, releasing this as OSS was a chance to give back a little …
a) I’ve added an issue on the CodePlex project about the Modification vs Creation date (I think the app should let the user decide which of the two dates to use).
b) Yep, different formats are on the list. This is one top things I want to add… HTML, PDF, WordML, etc, etc.
c) Another feature I’ve just recently added to the issue list is to provide more flexible file naming. I’m thinking of a [macro] or primitive approach. You know, like when you rip music off of CD’s? How you can define how the song names and paths are created? That’s the kind of path feature I want to add. Where you can decide what the file names are, how they are hived, etc (I’m thinking it would be cool to be able to have a /Year/Month/ path structure
d) Yep, images are on the list. I added that last week too… lol
To avoid IP issues with work, etc, I can only work on this project on weekends, etc. But it IS active and I will be getting to these things “real soon now”
Thanks again and take care,
Greg
Hmmm… guess I should try it anytime soon… The thought of nuked posts is indeed horrid!
Hi Greg, thanks for the comments. Feature C and D is pretty interesting.
Once a newer version is up, I might write a revised review. Your nifty little app could do with a lot more publicity considering the massive number of Blogger blogs.
I might take a look at the source when I’m free to see if I can help out because I do C# at work too
Cool…
The code is dirty and pretty ugly, but hey, it works… And it’s in VB.Net, so I hope it doesn’t hurt your C#’ed eyes. lol
Hey Greg, that’s not a problem, I did VB6 before moving to C#.
The main problem is time … I used your utility a few months back and I only recently got time to write about it
I do not believe this