I did it! How to back-up your journal step by step

[beelikej]

Over the years I archived over 12000 (TWELVE THOUSAND!!!) images on LiveJournal. Whenever there was a new platform I tried it (I'm BeeLikeJ all over the internet) yet I've never found such a great combination of journaling, community and image archiving as on LJ.

I have a permanent account on LJ (these were only occasionally available; it means I don't have to pay anymore charges and Livejournal shows me no ads). I have a Blogspot, a Twitter, an InsaneJournal (!), a Tumblr, an Instagram, a Pillowfort and a (paid) Dreamwidth account, pretty much from the start. I also moderate a lot of communities on most of these platforms.
I had a Photobucket from before LJ's scrapbook, which I managed to back-up when that site went kablooy.
I've been crossposting from Dreamwidth for years, automatically when available and by hand now that LJ has shut down that option. So I have a back-up of all my posts online, but my images remain linked from LJ only.

When word went around that LJ might be cut off, I tried to find a way to safeguard my images as well. I found two easy methods!

Turn your journal or blog into a pdf book
I managed to make a digital version of my LJ including images and comments through Blogbooker. Scroll down at the frontpage of Blogbooker to see what blog systems they support and go from there. I used the free version and one Standard plan to save all of my 18 years of history on LiveJournal in pdf books (some by year, some by a few years).
You can save 3 years with low resolution imagery for free; I recommend the paid service if you need more options (time+quality).


Download your LJ-scrapbook (photo-albums)
I still kept looking for a method to download all my images and I have finally succeeded to back up my LJ-scrapbook on my computer as it is organized online: by album and with the correct name of each file. (This means that should I ever want to take the time to reupload and relink them all from another online archive, I can;)

I did this with Semagic, a client for LJ, Blogger and Wordpress (basically a Client means an interface on your computer to write your posts; it's another way for you to update your feed on any of these services, comparable to posting from email or your phone app) Download the latest version here. This is an exe-file that you need to install on your computer.
You also need Internet Explorer (IE), yes the old browser. If you have Windows, it should still be lurking on your computer. Check the official instructions from Microsoft here

1: Log into your LJ on IE and be sure to click the 'Remember Me' button.
2: Start Semagic and log into your LJ
3: Go to the Journal tab (top left in the menu)
4: Choose: Pictures > Open Livejournal Scrapbook
5: A window pop-ups with the name of your journal/scrapbook
6: Click on 'Export of all pictures' and select a folder
7: A Semagic pop-up warns you to login in IE (see step 1:)
Click OK
You'll see a 'Sent' notification flickering in the left bottom corner of the window, keep an eye on that: it keeps making a connection to your scrapbook to download all your albums automatically to the folder you selected.

It took about 40 minutes to download all my 241 albums with in total 12131 images!

Downloading your LJ as an xml (coded text for browser)
Additionally you can use Semagic to back-up your journal, images and comments as xml files. To do that: click the 'Synchronize' button (two red arrows in opposite directions), check Options and then select the Synchronization button to Start.


I feel so relieved to have my own back-up now, hope this helps anyone who was looking for ways to save their journal stuff:)

J.

X-posted to https://beelikej.livejournal.com/573870.html

Comments

[tarlanx]

Thank you for this! I tried another method with a download manager and it was long winded (per album) and only brought down half the images in the album. Semagic is working beautifully!

I'm sure I have all the images on my PC anyway... but always better to be safe than sorry.

[beelikej]

That's wonderful to hear! I had found the instructions for a Download manager too, but that would have been a lot of work with the amount of albums I have;)

Of course I have all the original images stored (I'm a hoarder by nature, so I never throw anything out, haha), but they are divided over several harddrives and with their original names, not the ones given by Livejournal, so it would be a big hassle to restore online storage and linkage if needed.

The only issue with downloading per album could be the Unsorted images that were left when LiveJournal changed the scrapbook system (in 2015 if I remember correctly) but I had put those in a folder myself back then, so I had no problems collecting all images.

[tarlanx]

I had a few problems with images that didn't come down because of 'security' weirdo issues. Some came when I told it to check again for friends but others I had to go into scrapbook and make them all public. A couple are still missing but I haven't the heart to go through hundreds of images one at a time to see what is missing!

I agree though... needed the LJ info so if worse came to worse I could re-link the correct image to a post. I've started uploading some of my images to Squidgie's images.

[beelikej]

Ahw, yes, all of my images are public, so I didn't encounter that issue.

I can't seem to find Squidgie's, is that a local server?* I may start using personal online storage, I don't have a lot of faith in commercial online services anymore, after both Photobucket and Flickr changed so dramatically.

*Hey, I found it! Looks good, thanks for the tip :-)

[tarlanx]

Just in case: https://images.squidge.org

squidgiepdx is a wonderful guy, and an avid fan who runs a set of servers to help out other fans.

[amberdreams]

Ahhh it's Windows, I'm on a mac. Never mind. I tried Blogbooker and did the one year free first, then realised it was only a year, so I paid for the basic membership and set up the download thinking I'd get the whole thing. Left it running, forgot about it overnight and when I came back to the page in the morning the download wasn't there, and it won't let me do it again. So that was $18 down the drain. Hey ho.

[beelikej]

Ahw, what a shame about your failed Blogbooker effort; that does indeed not download automatically, it gives you a download link at the end. I still think it's worth trying again, but of course that's up to you.

For images you may be able to use a Downloader manager, it's a bit more work, but that should work with OSX as well, according to one commenter: information here on DW.

I also came across a rather technical option to preserve an xml file on a Mac. Don't know if you're up for that, you can find an instruction here. (It's from 2017, so I'm not sure if that still works)

[amberdreams]

Cheers me dear, I don't know if I have the energy, I still have to set up our printer after a change of broadband - I've been putting it off LOL