Backing Up Your LJ Data

[tinturtle]

Here are several things you can do to back up your LJ posts, their accompanying comments, and other data.

1) Use LiveJournal's export tool.
This will allow you to download the text of your entries in a format that can be reuploaded later. Images and comments are not included.

2) If you have a Dreamwidth account, use the Dreamwidth importerThis

Comments

[macklingirl]

I just discovered that I don't understand DW in total. I'm not able to add images to my account and post them in an entry. The only way that I got an image into my post was to use the LJ-code and put this into my post. But why am I not able to post an image the easy way?

I must admit, I don't like DW very much and if LJ ever collapses I'm out of most sides and challenges of the fandom. So sad.

[spankulert]

Choose Create/Upload Images from the drop-down menu.
Choose View All Your Images. The image codes are there for you to copy/paste into entries, choosing between thumbnail or full size.

If you have a paid account you can also set up posting via email, and any images added to the mail will automatically upload and be added to the post.

This DW for tumblerites post might be useful to find your footing? :)

[byslantedlight]

I'm not Macklingirl, but have been talking about this with her. I eventually worked out what you've described above, but the problem is that it's so much more time-consuming than posting images in lj - you can't seem to post and upload them in a single step, you have to do it in two steps, from what I can see? I'm guessing you've been using dw for a while now - has there been discussion about why they didn't copy this utility from lj, instead of doing it in the longer process? If lj does vanish, I must admit I'll be put off posting to dw by the extra time it will take - alot of my posts are image-heavy - unless there's perhaps hope that this is something they're planning to upgrade

[spankulert]

No worries, I know how much of a pain a new site can be :)

you have to do it in two steps, from what I can see?
If posting from the site, yes. Though you can batch-upload, so it's not one image at a time. If you're planning to post a lot of images, the best way would probably be to get a paid account and set up posting by email.
To post an image to your journal by emailing it to the site, you need to make sure that you've set up posting by email. Once you've set that up, you can attach an image file to an email post. The image will be posted exactly as we receive it and won't be resized. The image will be posted at the end of the entry. Any text you include in the email after you attach the image won't be included in your entry.

You can upload multiple images at once by attaching multiple image files to the email.

I presume that 3GB is an overall allowance, and once you exceed it, dw would stop letting you post images unless you deleted some (and thus lost them from your posts)?Correct, you can only host images up to that image

[byslantedlight]

Thanks for all this - good to know that at least I'm understanding dw correctly

[spankulert]

Yeah image hosting is one of those tiresome things. Very sad to go back and see all those image replacements. That and missing vids really bum me out.

you can't then select one from the pictures
Click on an icon, then click the button that says "select" :)

[macklingirl]

I have the same problem with the number of pictures and none of them went with the backup to DW. I would have to upload each of them new.

Oh, and I think I should search for a good image hosting place so that I could change my posts over at AO3, because if LJ goes down every link there will fail.