How to backup your Squarespace website
We’ve ALL been there.
We’re flying along in our busy work day, making some updates to our website, and then: Oh sh!t.
Most of the time, you can undo-undo-undo your way out of it. But sometimes it’s a complete fail. You realize there’s no restoring the thing you just accidentally deleted.
Learning how to backup a Squarespace website is a super important step in maintaining your online presence and safeguarding your hard work. If you’re running a small business - it’s vital.
Let’s dive in and learn why and how to create a Squarespace website backup.
Why you should backup your Squarespace site
Regular backups protect against data loss due to unforeseen circumstances such as server failures, hacking, or accidental deletions (been there 🙋♀️).
You may also have an instance where some custom code accidentally gets deleted or corrupt, or one of your website contributors makes a mistake while editing a page.
Having a reliable backup ensures that your website can be restored in a timely manner, minimizing downtime and preserving your brand's reputation.
Trust me because I’ve been there! Backing up your website will give you peace of mind, allowing you to focus on growing your business, knowing your content and valuable information are secure.
Tips to backup a Squarespace website
There isn’t (so far) a single-click solution to back up a Squarespace website, but the following tips combined will help cover your bases. As new processes become available or more streamlined, I’ll be sure to update this post.
TIP 1: Duplicate your Squarespace website
If you do only ONE thing to back up your website, let it be this! Duplicate your website directly within your Squarespace account.
Although it’s not a 100% “back up” in the traditional sense, it’s a quick and easy way to duplicate the majority of your website content.
Combined with the other back up processes listed below (which I highly recommend), it will cover you in the event that you need to replace lost website content.
IMPORTANT: Limitations of Squarespace website duplication
At this time, it’s not possible to duplicate a Squarespace website with these characteristics:
A site that has more than 100 pages
A site that’s using developer-mode
A site that’s being hosted on the “Cover Page” hosting plan
When duplicating a website, some elements will NOT carry over to the new duplicate, such as:
analytics
saved page sections
licensed stock images
contributor permissions
third-party extensions
uploaded/linked files such as PDFs
scheduling pages or email campaigns
customer/selling data such as orders
👉 Visit Squarespace for more details about website duplication
How to duplicate a Squarespace website
On your Squarespace account dashboard, find the website you want to duplicate.
Click on the three dots on the far right and a menu will appear.
Select Duplicate Website and you’ll see the duplication process start immediately.
When the process is complete, you’ll receive an email from Squarespace. You’ll find the duplicate website in your Squarespace account as a new trial site.
💡 PRO TIP Anytime a duplicate website is created, it will be in “trial mode” until it’s upgraded to a paid Squarespace hosting plan. Why is this important? If you’re a Squarespace Circle Member, your trial period will last 6 months. Otherwise, the trial period lasts only 2 weeks. In both cases you can duplicate the website again before the trial period expires, or contact Squarespace support for an extension on the trial.
TIP 2: Duplicate the pages (and blog posts) of your website
You can duplicate a page of a Squarespace website, which is helpful for multiple reasons, for example:
Create new pages
Duplicate a page to quickly create a new page that will have a similar layout or features, and use it as a starting point in your design process.
Experiment with design and features
If you have an existing web page that you want to update without disturbing the current page, duplicating it is a great option. You can play around with the duplicate page behind the scenes and change the layout, content, add features, etc. to see how the updated page might look and function before committing to it.
Mini backup
Before I hand off a website to a client, I like to duplicate all final pages so that they have a reference point to the original ones, if needed.
How to duplicate a page in Squarespace to create a backup
Click on the settings icon to the right of the page name to open the Page Settings.
Under the General tab, click on Duplicate Page. The duplicate page will appear in the Not Linked section of your website.
Squarespace adds the word “copy” to the end of a duplicate page name. However you can change this at any time by opening the page settings and renaming the page (Remember to also update the URL slug to reflect the name of the new page).
Where to store duplicate web pages in Squarespace
Because we’re talking about duplicating web pages for the purpose of having backup copies, my recommendation is to store the duplicate pages together in a folder to keep things organized for easy access in the future.
Let’s run through that process:
Create a folder in the Not Linked section of your site. Squarespace calls these folders dropdowns. You can rename the folder anything such as “Backup Pages.”
Begin duplicating your site pages one by one, and drag each duplicated page into the new folder.
Open up Page Settings for each duplicate page and disable it by toggling OFF the Enable Page button. Because the duplicate pages are for backup only, we do NOT want these pages organically found or scanned by search engines. The page’s name will grey-out, but it will still be active and accessible for you to edit at any time.
Create a folder in the Not Linked section.
Toggle the Enable Page button to the OFF position.
Backup your blog in Squarespace
The duplication process for blog posts requires a different approach. You’ll note that you can’t duplicate an entire blog (a collection page).
But you can duplicate individual posts by clicking on the three dots to the right of the post title, then selecting Duplicate. The duplicate posts will remain in draft-mode along with your list of published posts.
However, if you have a large number of posts, this isn’t really an ideal way of making backups of your blog content.
My recommendation for backing up a blog is to store your content elsewhere - such as on your computer hard drive or Google Drive.
I store all of my post content on my laptop in organized folders:
COPY - written post content saved in a text editor like Word or Pages
IMAGES - any photos or graphics that will accompany the post
CALENDAR - a spreadsheet of post titles, dates, categories, and other details
TIP 3: Save page sections of your website
Saving page sections is a quick and easy step you can take to help back up essential elements of your website. Think of the pages as being made up of multiple “building blocks”. Each building block (or section) can be edited, moved up or down the page, duplicated within the page, and saved to help you slowly build the web page.
The Save Section (heart icon) feature is brilliant and allows you to preserve your carefully crafted section layouts, design choices, and content.
Once you’ve saved a page section, you can access it for use in other areas of the same page or on new pages where you’ll have similar content.
How to save a web page section in Squarespace
While in page edit mode, hover over the section you’d like to save.
When the Edit Section menu appears on the right side, click on the heart icon to save the section.
That’s it! Your page section has been saved.
How to re-use a saved page section in Squarespace
While in page edit mode, click on Add Section.
In the pop-up menu, click on Saved Sections.
Click on the section you want to insert, and it will instantly appear on your page as a duplicate of your saved section. (Changes you make to the new duplicate will NOT affect the original page section that’s still saved in your Saved Sections area.)
✨ READ MORE Working with page sections in Squarespace Fluid Engine
💡 PRO TIP At this time, working with page sections is only possible when editing pages in Squarespace 7.1 using Fluid Engine. Collection pages (such as blogs, portfolios) and footers, don’t support this feature.
TIP 4: Backup custom CSS and page code injections
This is an important thing to do because it’s soooo easy to accidentally delete a tiny snippet of code. And doing so will alter the rest of the code - NOT GOOD.
The nice thing is it’s easy to back up the code just by copying and pasting it into a plain text editor like TextEdit (Macs) or Notepad (Windows) for safekeeping.
If you’re updating your site frequently, get in the habit of taking this step every time - you’ll thank me later!
Here are the areas where you’ll want to back up the code, if you have any:
Custom CSS
Page code injections
Header and footer code injections
TIP 5: Keep copies of all website text, images, and files
Similar to blog posts, it’s always a good idea to keep a copy of your website content stored elsewhere… just in case.
Again, you can store those files on your computer’s hard drive or a cloud service like Google Drive, and use organized folders to keep things tidy.
Here’s a brief glimpse of how I have it setup with these folders:
COPY: A folder containing separate saved documents (Word, Pages, etc.) for each page of my website such as About, Services, etc. Each file contains all the text copy for a particular page. I update these files whenever I make changes to my website.
IMAGES: A folder containing all support graphics or photos that are organized into sub-folders by page name.
FILES: A folder containing downloadable files (such as PDFs) that are linked to from my website.
CODE: A folder containing plain text documents of all my website custom code (CSS, page header injections, etc.).
SCREENS: Full screen captures of each page of my website (see Tip 7 below).
TIP 6: Export your contacts and email lists
As your business grows, you’ll probably have a long list of customers, those who’ve filled out your contact form, and others who’ve signed up through your subscriber form.
You can export all of these lists in a CSV format that can be read by a spreadsheet software such as Excel or Numbers.
How to export a contact list in Squarespace
On the left-side menu, click on Contacts.
Then in the top right corner of the page, click on the three dots next to the Add Subscribers button.
Select Export All Contacts.
How to export a specific subscriber list or other list in Squarespace
On the left-side menu, click on Contacts > Lists & Segments.
Find the list that you’re interested in exporting, and click the three dots to the far right.
Select Export.
TIP 7: Capture full-page screen shots
This tip comes courtesy of a fabulous (and FREE!) Chrome extension called GoFullPage.
I highly recommend this extension for capturing full-screen snapshots of your website, page-by-page.
When prompted, the tool will run down the current web page, capturing it as if someone were scrolling down, and then allow you to download the full image as a PNG or PDF file.
It’s brilliant - and lets you get a long visual of how each page of your website looks now (layout and design-wise), so that you have a point of reference if needed.
💡 PRO TIP This is also a great way to capture before and afters if you’re redesigning a website!
I hope these tips have been helpful and that you’re feeling more confident about how to backup your Squarespace website.
I recommend running through these backup processes before making any major changes to your website, so that you can always refer back to its original state if needed.
It's essential for the longevity and success of your website AND your business.
Happy designing!
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