April 18, 2011

How Do I Backup My Blogger Template?

Anytime you go to "Edit HTML" on the Template page and make changes, it is a good idea to backup your template.


Here's how to do it:

1. Go to your Template page from the Blogger Dashboard. Click on "Backup/Restore".

2. Click the orange button that says "Download Full Template".



3.  Save the file to a folder that will be easy to find it from again. Also rename to something like "Blog Template" so that it is easy to find.


That's It. If something goes wrong with your template after you make changes, you can bring back your saved template by clicking "Backup/Restore" again (from the Template page). Click "Browse" this time and find the template that you saved and choose "Open".


**One way to avoid ruining your blog when you edit the HTML is to click "Preview" after you make a change and before you click "Save".


Backing up Your Sidebar Gadgets:
Changing your template should not result in you losing your sidebar gadgets. However, occasionally it does happen. (I lost all of my links on my personal blog and I did not back it up beforehand.)

To backup your sidebar gadgets, you need to open some kind of text program, Word, Notepad or whatever you have and copy the info from your gadgets. In my back-up file, I copy the title and then any html code that is in the box. Or if the gadget has specific settings that I chose, I write down what settings I chose. For link lists, I copy the title of the link and the URL. This can be tedious if you have a lot, but totally worth it if you lose them!

Be sure to save your file!

These things can be a pain to backup, but you never know when something will go wrong!

7 comments:

Thank you so much for leaving a comment! I would love to answer everyone's questions, but I am a busy mama. I will try my best, but technical questions that require me to study your blog's html are very time consuming for me. I may not be able to answer all of these comments. If you are a reader that knows the answer to a question, please help your fellow readers by offering your advice.