Backing up your livejournal

[dangermousie]

Seeing that people are worried about LJ going kaput, may I recommend LJArchive as a way to back up your entries? You won't be able to extract them from there to cross-post on GreatestJournal or InsaneJournal, but you will have it all saved in a usable/readable format.

I backed up all my stuff last night and unlike LJBook, which a lot of people swear by, it worked for me. (Also, unlike LJBook, since you download the program files onto your hard-drive, you don't have to worry about it being too busy with too many users to access).

LJBook, I am sure, is great, but for someone like me, who has over 4500 entries, many of them graphics-heavy, and almost 60,000 comments that I want to save, LJBook is not a good option: the journal is too huge for it to save effectively. LJArchive did it with no problems, though, even if it took a while.

Here is the link to the software:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/ljarchive/

In other news, I have both a GJ and IJ accounts (though I never use them) so if LJ does go bye-bye, I am dangermousie on both.

Comments

[marspeach.livejournal.com]

Why are people worried about "LJ going kaput?" What's going on?

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

pparently LJ owners laid off some people so the usual yearly panic is on. I think it's nothing, myself, but better safe than sorry.

[marspeach.livejournal.com]

I don't pay attention to that stuff but now I guess I should do something just in case. Not that I have anything particularly interesting or important in my journal.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

I like your LJ!

[marspeach.livejournal.com]

Awwww..... *blushes*

[grace-om.livejournal.com]

Seconding your rec for LJ archive. Just to be on the safe side, I downloaded it and backed up my journals yesterday. Mine aren't nearly as big as yours, but it was easy and fast (and I'm lazy about these things and get frustrated easily).

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I am lazy too. I wanted something simple.

[yavannie77.livejournal.com]

Thanks for that tip, I made a backup copy with ljarchive a moment ago, just in case. Seemed simple enough. Also signed up for an IJ account as yavannie, without the 77.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Neat...I will look for you on IJ!

[artic-fox.livejournal.com]

I use LJ Archive, and have done everytime there is a freak out (a couple a year, generally since I've been here). I haven't heard of LJ Book. How does that work?

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

You type in your url, password, it saves in PDF form - you can pick date ranges for what you want to save.

[artic-fox.livejournal.com]

Is it exportable?

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Sadly, no. It's in PDF format.

I am sure there are exportable versions of saving LJ, I am just not sure what as it's not something I was interested in...I can scrounge around if you like.

[artic-fox.livejournal.com]

That's fine. I've found LJ Backup which saves everything in HTML format, so I'm sure that will work.

[bzoppa.livejournal.com]

I did the archive using the tool, but what about future archives? Will it do everything each time or is there a way to limit ranges? (This is me being a little lazy and not looking through much documentation; I'm hoping you've already thought and come up with an answer).

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

This is for the whole journal. For updated entries I will save with LJBook, where you can pick ranges (you cannot with LJArchive, or if you can, I haven't looked yet). The biggest problem with LJBook is it's bad for huge data dumps but if you are only doing updates, then the size is small and it should work fine.

[bzoppa.livejournal.com]

Excellent, thanks.

I can understand why you wouldn't want to use LJBook initially. You have tons of entries, and it is easier just to let that run. I might back up on a monthly basis or something...

I've never seen such widespread panic before—ie, I've never been inspired to back up my LJ until now.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I think the panic is a bit OTT but better safe than sorry!

[zsuness.livejournal.com]

How much did it take you? Cause I've started ljArchive like.. 5-7 hours ago and it's still working. O.o

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

I left it on overnight so probably 8-9 hours tops?

[zsuness.livejournal.com]

That's encouraging, I was on the verge of giving up.. though I have much less entries/comments to be saved.. but also prob a slower net/comp, lol. Thanks.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

How does this work? And why should I worry about LJ going belly-up? Is this to do with the credit crunch? I downloaded the LJ archive as a zipfile but there doesn't seem to be an application on there...? What should happen?

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

I didn't dl a zip file but an exe file, but with the zip, you should unzip it then install the exe file, then open the file and create a saved lj from there (I can't tell you the exact option to pick on the menu on the mechanics because I don't have the application right in front of me, but it's pretty self-explanatory once you see it)

LJ belly-up: i think it won't happen but some people are worried because they cut some of their staff.

[cocori.livejournal.com]

This is awesome! I always wondered what I'd do if anything went kaput with my LJ. I have so much stuff, especially Jdrama related trades and stuff that I keep here that it would be a loss of anything happened to it. Thanks for the info!

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Yay, glad to be of help!

[muffinkath7.livejournal.com]

Thanks for this! I don't know what I would have done if I'd lost all my entries. This has basically been my diary for the last four years. Worked like a charm. :)

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

I am so glad I saved my stuff-- it would have sucked otherwise.

[fatema.livejournal.com]

Ooh, thanks for the link. Do you happen to know if it works on Macs, though? The system requirements says that it's "OS independent" but the file type is an .exe, which is confusing. :/

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

I don't know if it does, but someone on flist of flist posted a link to mac-compatible lj saving tools. Let me hunt for that post.

[vierran45.livejournal.com]

Well, I got an IJ account just in case. I'm Vierran there (without the 45).

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Yay, thanks for the heads up!