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

[madman101]

DW stopped importing from LJ.

[byslantedlight]

I don't see an announcement on dw about this?

[madman101]

You're right. I should clarify in my post. They stopped xposting. Importing option is available but almost completely dysfunctional - https://madman101.dreamwidth.org/1866281.html

[byslantedlight]

That makes more sense! I see importing is still working for people occasionally, so it's definitely still worth trying. 😊

[caranfindel]

It worked for me last night, so keep trying.

[byslantedlight]

Very good to hear!

[lynn82md]

It imports every thing well. It's when you get to the entries that it starts to crash after a while when you've been in the que. I'm on my third attempt now trying to import the entries to DW.

I did add some stuff back in 2017.

[lynn82md]

ETA: All entries are finally imported. Took three times though.

[madman101]

Ha - 2017 - so did I! That was the other scare.

Well, I tried several times w/ DW lately w/ no luck. It was a rollercoaster w/ blogbooker.com, too, but I finally got it all done did. And I think I discovered that the best time to try it was between 6-8:am CST. That's probably when there is least traffic from both USA and Russia. So, maybe try that, if it doesn't work out.

Good luck!

[rogerdoger]

Does it make a difference how much data is being transferred? And is there a way to do it in smaller chunks? I've been trying for a couple of days at random times and it just crashes every time after a few minutes.

[madman101]

I think it does somewhat.

Even during the daytime crunch, it has been easier to import my communities than it has been to import my full journal at 6:am.

I don't think there is a way to chop a journal import up for DW.

You can do that if you have a paid blogbooker.com.

I am trying to additionally back-up via LJ EXPORT. It does not get bogged down at all, but takes a little while of tedium. If you're worried about not importing your journal on DW, I'd plug away on that in the meantime. That way, you will the basics of what you need to transfer posts to DV manually later, if the import fails. And you can transpose that info so you can print it out, edit, etc.

Otherwise, I don't know of a way to chop up the data for DW. I don't think there is one.

[rogerdoger]

I just experimented with using the LJ export and yuk, the format in the file is horrible. Plus my journal goes back to 2003 with 1300 entries. So Im not thrilled at that. I guess beggars can't be choosers. Lets just hope LJ doesnt actually disappear.

[madman101]

I know! But, it gets really easy / rote. My jnl goes back to 2004 and I've got I can't remember how many thousands of posts - but the number of posts doesn't really matter here..

So, yeah, it's just HTML code, like in your post page. You can slip that into DW real simple like.

Did I just say that?

[rogerdoger]

Luckily I seem to have got DW to grab everything off LJ now.

[madman101]

Yay!

Yeah - I'm seeing the traffic drop now, which is not what I expected.

[rogerdoger]

It just crashed again. but hey 4320 time is a charm. Isn't it late in the US so it would be dropping? I'm guessing that majority of accounts are still in the US.