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Download your blog

Take your whole blog with you: one .zip with WordPress and Ghost import files, every post as a web page, your pictures and a README.

3 min readUpdated
  • blog
  • export
  • download
  • wordpress
  • ghost
  • migrate

You can take your whole blog with you at any time. Download your blog gives you one .zip with every post, draft and picture, ready to import into WordPress or Ghost, or just to keep. Only the owner and admins can download it.

  1. Open the blog's Settings

    In Blog, open the Settings tab and find Download your blog near the bottom.

  2. Press Download

    The button reads Preparing... and stays disabled while Drry builds the file, which can take a while on a big blog. The download starts by itself when it is ready, and you stay on the Settings tab. If it cannot be built, a message says Could not download your blog, and you can press Download again.

  3. Unzip it and open README.txt

    The README says what is in the file, how to import each part, what did not travel, and which posts were for members.

What is in the zip

  • wordpress.xml: WordPress's own export format. In WordPress, open Tools, then Import, then WordPress, and tick Download and import file attachments so every picture is copied in. The cover becomes the featured image, and categories and bylines carry over. Featured posts are sticky, scheduled posts arrive as scheduled and drafts as drafts.

  • ghost.json: a Ghost import file. In Ghost, open Settings, then Advanced, then Import/Export, then Import. It carries posts, tags, who can read each post (public, members or paid), the members-only line, the feature image, search settings and dates.

  • posts: each post as a page that opens in any browser, using the picture copies in the zip.

  • images: your pictures, up to 150 MB. The README lists any that did not fit by address.

  • README.txt: the guide to all of the above.

What the download includes

Published, scheduled and draft posts are all in it. A published post exports the words readers see now, never changes you have staged on top of it. Drafts and scheduled posts export their working copy. Members-only and tier posts go out whole, because the file is your own writing, so keep it private.

What does not travel

  • Bookings, forms, price tables and other community sections inside a post only work in your community. Each becomes a link back to its post.

  • Cards become links to the course, event or product they showed.

  • Ghost does not get authors. Ghost would need an email address for each one, so it gives every imported post to the person importing, and you set the author there.

  • WordPress copies each picture when you import, so import before you close your community. Ghost only links to the pictures, so they stop showing once the community closes. The copies are in the images folder.

  • WordPress skips a post whose title already belongs to a post on your site. Rename either one first if you want both.

  • WordPress tells untitled posts, and posts sharing a title, apart by their exact date. Those keep a UTC date and may show a few hours off there, and a scheduled one may go live that many hours late. The README lists them.

Common questions

Can an editor download the blog?

No. Only the owner and admins can, because the file holds every draft and every members-only post.

Does downloading change my blog?

No. It only makes a copy. Nothing is removed or unpublished.

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