How to backup your Squarespace Site

If you’re like us and work in the tech industry, then you’ll be aware how important backups are in general. It’s essential to ensure that you have a reliable backup system in place, as a backup can help you to restore your website in case of any mishap (say a creative director reaching above his station and messing with a cPanel server), or general data loss, website hacking, or random server crashes.

In this guide, we’ll help you to back up your Squarespace site and ensure that you have a reliable backup system in place.

Does Squarespace Have Its Own Built-In Backup Feature?

So, first and foremost, Squarespace does not offer a built-in backup feature.

I’ve spoken to Squarespace support representatives many times and they’ve all said that they do not offer backups from their end. ¯\ _(ツ)_ /¯

Trash Bin

As annoying as that is, they recommend that to view deleted content, you should visit the “Deleted Pages” icon at the bottom of the “Pages” menu; however, that doesn’t let you view previous versions of your site and are only available for 30 days.

If you’re interested in restoring a deleted page from the trash bin, follow these steps:

1. Go to the “Pages” menu in your Squarespace account.
2. Click on the “Deleted Pages” icon at the bottom of the “Pages” menu.
3. Select the page you want to restore and click on “Restore.”
4. The restored page will be moved into the “Unlinked” section of the “Pages” menu.

Just note that restoring pages from the deleted pages menu is not a reliable backup method, as the trash bin only stores deleted pages for 30 days. If you accidentally delete a page and it has been more than 30 days since it was moved to the trash bin, you will not be able to recover it using this method.

Duplicate Your Site

There is another Squarespace feature that could potentially be used as a backup option, and that’s duplicating your site from your “Accounts” menu.

To duplicate your Squarespace site, follow these steps:

1. Go to your Account Dashboard.
2. Click on the site that you want to duplicate.
3. Click on the three dots icon (…) in the Home Menu and select “Duplicate Website.”
4. The duplicate site will appear as the first site in your account dashboard, with its site title ending in “(Copy).”

The copied site will start in a free trial, like any other new Squarespace site. You can upgrade the trial to paid service when you’re ready.

Just be aware that as this duplicate is technically a “trial” site, it will only have a lifespan of 14 days.

Keep a Copy of Your Written Content

I predominantly write all of my webpage content and blog posts on Google Docs before I add them into a site. This comes from years of being a persnickety university student and ensures that if something happens to the website, I’ll still have the original saved elsewhere.

Can I Use a Third Party Backup Service?

Short answer? …no.

Long answer? Well, it all comes down to Squarespace being a “closed system”.

This means that it is a self-contained platform that provides a complete set of tools and features for creating and managing a website.

Unlike other website builders that allow users to add bespoke back-end code or integrate with a plethora of different third-party services, Squarespace is designed to operate within its own ecosystem. This means that users cannot install additional plugins or extensions to modify the functionality of the platform beyond what is provided and intended by Squarespace.

Read also: The Future of Clinical Trials: How Technology is Changing the Game

While this approach may limit the flexibility and customisation options that WordPress users may be used to, it also ensures that the platform is stable, secure, and optimised for performance. It also means that users do not have to worry about maintaining software updates or security patches, as Squarespace handles this on their end.

However, I feel that “backup and restore” options should be available, especially if you have a site with multiple contributors. Too many cooks spoil the broth, and all that.

Manually Backup Your Site

This is the most reliable option you are left with: roll up your sleeves and do it yourself.

Save Copies of All Your Media

I mentioned earlier that you should keep a copy of all your written content, but you should really save and make a copy of all your website assets. That includes, text, photos, logos and other graphics you might be using.

Export Your Products as a CSV

Exporting Squarespace products as a CSV file can provide a flexible and convenient way to manage your product data as well as ensuring that you have a backup of your product information.

CSV files can be easily opened and edited in Google Sheets and allow you to easily manage and organise your product data, including making bulk changes or adding new products.

In fact I tend to manage products this way as opposed to managing via Squarespace as it’s much quicker (in my humble opinion).

That being said, to export products as a CSV file, follow these steps:

1. Log in to your Squarespace account and go to the Home Menu.
2. Click on Commerce, and then click on Products.
3. Click on the three dots at the top of the page and select Export.
4. Choose the product information you want to export, such as Product Title, SKU, Price, Inventory, and more. You can also choose to include variants and images.
5. Select the file format as CSV, and then click on Export.
6. Save the file to your computer.

Save Any Custom Code

For the love of all that is holy, please make a backup of any CSS or JavaScript modifications you’ve made to your site.

I harp on about this to all of our school/college students to save, backup and comment on any code they’re working on. Trust me, the slightest accidental keyboard stroke while you’re editing a CSS or JavaScript file could make the whole thing stop working.

• If you’ve bought a plugin – duplicate the original code and save it somewhere safe.
• If you’ve made a feature – version control it and save each version somewhere safe.

Screen Grab Every Page

Hugley tedious, but at least you have a visual reference for every page on your site that you can look back to if things go wrong.

For full page screenshots, I use the “GoFullPage” Chrome extension.

The Summary

About PixelHaze

With his extensive experience in technical support, Will is also responsible for providing expert guidance and troubleshooting assistance to our clients. They have an incredible ability to solve complex issues and ensure that our clients’ websites run smoothly.

In addition to his technical support expertise, Will is also a skilled Squarespace plugin developer. They have created custom solutions that have streamlined our clients’ website functionality (and our own) and improved the user experience for their visitors.