Frequently Asked Questions:

FAQ: How do I import an old blog, preserving posts and comments?

One of the great things about switching to WordPress is that you can very easily import your old blogs. This post will cover how to import blogs from three platforms: Blogger (blogspot), TypePad, and WordPress.com. Together, these three types of blogs probably make up 95% of the blogs that people want to import into self-hosted WordPress blogs.

NOTE: after successfully importing an old blog, DO NOT delete that old blog. Just let it sit there. Your photos from your old blog are not actually moved over to your new blog, they are simply referenced by your new blog and must be left in place to display correctly.

For all three types, you start by going to “Manage” –> “Import” in your WP Admin area, which looks like this:

Importing a Blogger Blog:

If the blog you are importing is a blogger blog (i.e., ends with a .blogspot.com), follow these steps. (NOTE: if you have a blogger blog that was set up to publish via FTP or SFTP (fairly uncommon), see this post for info on how to get it imported.)

  1. Open up your blog’s WordPress Admin area, and go to “Manage” –> “Import.”
  2. Next, open another tab of your browser, or a new browser window, log in to your Blogger account. Make sure you are logged in and not just visiting your blogger blog.
  3. Then, go back to your WordPress Admin area and click on the “Blogger” link, then click “Authorize.”
  4. If you did step 2 right, you should see a screen that looks like this:
  5. Click to grant access, and then you will be able to click an “import” button for the blog you want to import, shown below:
  6. When it is done importing, the “Magic Button” will change to saying “Set Authors.” Click it and map your blogger users to WordPress users. If you haven’t created any WordPress Users except the default “admin” you can navigate away from this page and click on “users” in the upper right of your screen, create some users and come back to this screen to map them correctly. That’s it. You’re done!

Importing a TypePad (Movable Type) Blog:

I’ve only done this a handful of times, and I don’t have a TypePad account that I have access to so that I can take screenshots, so I’ll have to do this section from memory. As I recall, the steps are:

  1. Login to your TypePad blog admin area. There should be an option somewhere that says “Export.” Click it and download the file it creates.
  2. Then, rename the download file “mt-export.txt”
  3. Next, in your WordPress blog’s admin area, go to “Manage” –> “Import” and click on the link that says “Moveable Type and TypePad”.
  4. In the next screen, click on the “browse” button and locate the “mt-export.txt” file.
  5. Click on “upload file and import.”
  6. The rest should be simple

NOTE: I have noticed that imported TypePad blogs occasionally display weird behavior in ProPhoto WordPress blogs, where instead of showing full posts on the homepage, they only show excerpts. To fix this, in your WP Admin area, click on “Design” –> “AWP Managment”. Then click on the “Posts & Pages” module, and disable inline posts. Scroll down to save your changes, and your posts should now display in full.

Importing a WordPress.com Blog:

If you have a free blog through WordPress.com and are switching to a self-hosted WordPress installation on your own domain and webhost, the steps to import are pretty simple.

  1. First, log into your old WordPress.com blog admin area and click on “Manage” –> “Export” and then click on “Download Export File.”
  2. Next, log into your new, self-hosted WordPress blog, and click on “Manage” –> “Import”. Click on browse and locate the file you just downloaded, and then click “Upload file and import.”
  3. Finally, map your old users to existing users in your new blog or create new users to map to and click submit.

Questions? Instead of emailing for support, leave a comment below so everyone can benefit from any clarification.

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 23rd, 2008 and is filed under Blogging, Frequently Asked Questions, Misc. FAQs. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

53 Responses to “FAQ: How do I import an old blog, preserving posts and comments?”

  1. On May 2nd, 2008 at 4:42 pm Lindsay said:

    Hey,

    I am attempting to import my blogger account……

    I granted wordpress access to my blogger account. It is showing
    Post 0/58 but it when I clink “import” nothing happens?

    Any suggestions?

  2. On May 2nd, 2008 at 6:15 pm Jared said:

    Nothing at all happens? Did it give you an error message? Can you try it again? Sometimes the server will timeout but then work at a later time…

  3. On May 20th, 2008 at 3:51 pm Jennifer Thebault said:

    I’m also trying to import my blogspot blog and it says:

    Could not connect to https://www.google.com

    There was a problem opening a secure connection to Google. This is what went wrong:

    The operation completed successfully.
    (0)

    I’m reading posts and others are having this problem, but I haven’t found a solution. Any suggestions?

  4. On May 21st, 2008 at 7:45 am Jared said:

    Jennifer – was your blogspot blog set up normally? or did you publish via FTP or SFTP? what’s your webhost?

    one time i couldn’t get a blogger blog to import and i solved it by importing it to another wordpress blog on another server where i could get the connection to work, and then exporting out of that wordpress blog, and imported that export. crazy, i know.

    if your blogger blog is set up normally, and you still can’t get it to work, email me through the support page and I’ll see what I can do for you.

  5. On May 29th, 2008 at 4:25 am joe said:

    what if I already have a wordpress blog on my server? do I just switch themes?

    Thanks-

  6. On May 29th, 2008 at 8:39 am Jared said:

    @joe: yup, then you just need to switch themes. everything will take care of itself.

  7. On June 30th, 2008 at 8:15 am Michelle said:

    I tried to import my TypePad blog. It said “HAVE FUN!” like it did it, but there are not any posts. Help?

  8. On July 1st, 2008 at 7:10 am Jared said:

    @Michelle: I sent you an email.

  9. On July 8th, 2008 at 9:08 pm Marci said:

    Is there a way to import the image files instead of just referencing them? I have a typepad blog and if I am understanding you right I would have to continue to pay my monthly fee to keep it up and running. Or does the blog still exist in the web world even if it is an “active account”.

  10. On July 9th, 2008 at 6:57 am Jared said:

    @Marci: the only thing I know of is this plugin:

    http://www.bloggingexpertise.com/plugins/cache-images/

    but, i’ve never tested it. i would definitely backup your whole blog before trying it. if you do try it and it works, could you let me know?

    you’d have to ask typepad if your images would be deleted or not if you stopped paying. i’m thinking they would, but i’m not sure. frustrating, i know. hopefully this plugin will work for you…

  11. On July 9th, 2008 at 12:15 pm Marci said:

    Jared-followed directions did get error message; followed pair tech suggestions however my .htacess file was empty at first. Is that correct? I also didn’t know if I was suppose to add any html coding with it. Once I saved it it gave me a server error so I deleted the text line. Any further suggestions?

  12. On July 9th, 2008 at 8:36 pm Jared said:

    @Marci: it is normal to have an empty .htaccess file.

    hmmm… i’m not sure. i’ve made a note to try this plugin out with a blog and see if i can get it working.

  13. On July 17th, 2008 at 1:45 am Lori said:

    Hi Jared,

    I seem to be having a problem importing my old blog from blogger. It’s published on blogspot, not an http://ftp... here is the error message:

    Could not connect to https://www.google.com
    There was a problem opening a secure connection to Google. This is what went wrong:

    Success (0)

    Any thoughts?

    Thanks!
    Lori

  14. On July 17th, 2008 at 7:20 am Jared said:

    @Lori: who’s your webhost? sometimes (maybe 10% of the time) blogger imports won’t work for me either. usually, i switch to a test blog hosted on bluehost and I can get the import to work. so i import it to a test wordpress blog, then export it out of there and then into the real one. it’s always worked for me.

    send me a note through the email on the support tab, and i’d be willing to use one of my test blogs to help you import yours.

  15. On August 12th, 2008 at 4:35 am Lindsay said:

    Hey,

    I imported my Blogger blog and now I”ve lost the new theme. Is there anyway I go back? It looks just like my old blogger blog; which I obviously don’t want.

    this is what it looks like now

    http://www.lindsayvanderbeek.com/blog

  16. On August 12th, 2008 at 5:29 am Jared said:

    @Lindsay: i’m not sure what you mean exactly, your blog is still using ProPhoto. the pictures that are imported from blogger will appear the same size and appearance. there is no changing that.

  17. On August 12th, 2008 at 6:38 am Lindsay said:

    Hey Jared,

    I had customized the background colour etc, which is now gone. Do you think it is just a matter of changing this coding again?

  18. On August 24th, 2008 at 1:54 pm lyndsay said:

    I tried to import my TypePad blog. It said “HAVE FUN!” like it did it, but there are not any posts. Help?

    I am having the same problem.

  19. On September 2nd, 2008 at 12:07 am Tracy said:

    Same problem with typepad and the “HAVE FUN” thing. Can you help me too?

  20. On September 2nd, 2008 at 6:35 am Jared said:

    @Tracy: can you verify that the file you downloaded from typepad contains information? can you open it up and see that it’s got a ton of text in it? i think what may be happening is people are thinking they are downloading the export file, but really don’t have it. the typepad export download link is kind of non-intuitive.

  21. On September 2nd, 2008 at 9:28 pm megan said:

    ok I can’t figure this out. I’ve done it several times, and each time i hit import, and it says ..70 posts…100 comments, then it says importing and then it says set authors….

    So when i go back in and view my new blog..where are all the posts?? DO i have to do anything else in order to see them. I also clicked manage posts, and they aren’t there either

  22. On September 3rd, 2008 at 5:54 am Jared said:

    @megan: when it says “set authors” you have to click on that and set the authors before it completes.

  23. On September 4th, 2008 at 11:03 am megan said:

    hmm…i did set authors. Then the next page comes up and under blogger user it doesn’t say anything, but under wordpress it says ‘me’ so …I selected ‘me’ and then clicked save. THen nothing. I went to the posts page, and there says 0/0

  24. On September 4th, 2008 at 12:35 pm megan said:

    when the button says “importing…” it only counted 1/70 posts, and 1/110 comments”

  25. On September 4th, 2008 at 6:40 pm terry said:

    i also cant get this to work. I have tried several times. It shows one and then switches to set authors.

  26. On September 5th, 2008 at 7:56 am Jared said:

    @megan: is your blogger blog a normal setup? or was it with a custom domain or setup via FTP/SFTP?

  27. On September 5th, 2008 at 7:56 am Jared said:

    @terry: what type of blog are you trying to import?

  28. On September 6th, 2008 at 10:41 am Gregg said:

    I’ve exported my old Wordpress file, which ends up being an XML extension, I’ve gone to import my XML file into my new blog, and I end up getting this message every time. What’s wrong?

    Internal Server Error

    The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request.

    Please contact the server administrator, webmaster@gshawphotoblog.com and inform them of the time the error occurred, and anything you might have done that may have caused the error.

    More information about this error may be available in the server error log.

    Additionally, a 404 Not Found error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.

  29. On September 7th, 2008 at 10:53 am Jared said:

    @Gregg: when you export a WordPress blog, it does come out as an XML file. but don’t import it as an XML file, import it as a WordPress blog. it should work.

  30. On October 10th, 2008 at 5:04 pm Jaidean said:

    I’m having the same problem as Megan. It shows my posts/comments have imported from blogger and I click to set author (me) and then it goes to the post page and nothing is there. My blogger blog was a normal set-up. Thanks!

  31. On October 10th, 2008 at 7:59 pm Jared said:

    @Jaidean: is it stuck at 1/post 1/comment? or does it show that it is importing all but they just don’t show up?

  32. On October 10th, 2008 at 9:04 pm Jaidean said:

    It says Posts: 1/301 and Comments: 1/1197.

  33. On October 11th, 2008 at 11:37 am Jared said:

    @Jaidean: sounds like you’ve got this problem:

    http://tinyurl.com/3v9ow6

    follow those directions and it should work

  34. On October 11th, 2008 at 10:17 pm Jaidean said:

    I tried creating a free blog and importing the posts there and it did the exact same thing (1/301, 1/1197)???

  35. On October 12th, 2008 at 7:58 am Jared said:

    @Jaidean: email me through the support tab and i’ll try to help.

  36. On October 12th, 2008 at 9:04 am Jaidean said:

    I ended up deleting everything and am going to try to start from scratch (well, I am being handheld this time) :) . Once it is up again, I will attempt to import again and if it doesn’t work, I will be emailing you! Thank you so much for your help!

  37. On October 20th, 2008 at 7:47 pm Lori said:

    Hi Jared, I have the same issue as Michelle in post #4. Everything seems to have imported fine, but the old comments I imported aren’t actually visible on my Prophoto theme until I click each individual post.

    P.S. this is a great piece of software! I’ve had some hiccups, but figured them out myself so far.

  38. On October 20th, 2008 at 7:52 pm Lori said:

    P.P.S. a little more info: all of the comments (300+) are visible under the ‘comments’ section of my new blog. The issue is that all of my posts say ‘no comments’ but when I open up a post, the comments become visible.

  39. On October 21st, 2008 at 5:53 am Jared said:

    @Lori: can you send me an email through the support tab? I think I may need your WP login and FTP to try to figure this out. I’ve never seen this happen before. I think it is a problem with the ajaxed inline comments, and not with the import, but I’m not sure.

  40. On October 25th, 2008 at 9:17 am janelle said:

    I’ve tried to import my blogger and it isn’t working. I’ve done all the steps, but none of my blogger posts show up. What am I doing wrong?

  41. On October 25th, 2008 at 11:08 am Jared said:

    @janelle: send me an email through the support tab.

  42. On November 2nd, 2008 at 9:08 am Chantal Stone said:

    Can you import from a Squarespace blog?

  43. On November 3rd, 2008 at 5:15 am Tamandra said:

    ok, being a bit airheaded here, but what’s #3, for importing the free Wordpress blogs?
    “Finally, map your old users to existing users in your new blog or create new users to map to and click submit.”
    What’s mapping a new user?

  44. On November 3rd, 2008 at 9:41 am Jared said:

    @Chantal Stone: I’m not aware if you can. Try googling or asking in the WordPress forum: wordpress.org/support

  45. On November 3rd, 2008 at 9:44 am Jared said:

    @Tamandra: basically you’re telling WordPress which users should be shown as having written all the posts you imported. so if you had a user on your old blog called “Joe Cool” who posted most of the posts, you could “map” all those posts to the user “Admin” or “Tamandra” or create a new user “Joe Cool” and then all those imported posts will show as having been written by whoever you mapped it to.

  46. On November 18th, 2008 at 11:12 am Heidi said:

    I have the same question as Tamandra did, I think.

    Exactly where do I go to “map” all my old posts to my new blog? I come up a lot in searches, but those searches take people to my old blog, and I want them to be taken to my new one. Thanks.

    I’m a bit slow and need specifics. Thanks.

  47. On November 18th, 2008 at 12:22 pm Jared said:

    @Heidi: i think Tamandra was actually asking about a step in the WP import procedure. you seem like you’re asking about trying to redirect your old posts to your new domain. that’s a lot trickier. if it was a hosted blog like blogger or wordpress.com, you can just about forget it. here’s about the closest you can get with blogger, see this post: http://tinyurl.com/5p3p7a

    if your old blog was on a domain you control, you can do some 301 permanent redirects, but that is way beyond the scope of what I can explain to you. sorry!

  48. On January 10th, 2009 at 2:06 pm heidi chowen said:

    Hi! I just purchased the prophoto for my blog…www.heidichowenphotography.com/blog …and I got stuck at the importing my old blog from blogger….It imports a bunch of text and not the photos…..what do I do to make the images appear and not a bunch of code?

  49. On January 13th, 2009 at 11:27 am admin said:

    @heidi chowen: can you email me through the support tab?

  50. On June 9th, 2009 at 6:53 am Kaila said:

    I seem to be having the same problem as many people. I am trying to upload my blogger blog, however, it says only 1/60 posts were uploaded. Then I set authors and nothing happens. I have tried it for a couple days now and I cannot get it to work.
    Any suggestions?
    My blog is a normal one.

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