Every day, I skim through a long list of blog posts, in Google Reader. I’ve accumulated the items in my list over a few years, and would hate to lose it.
Now I’m sure that the fine people at Google take very good care of my feed, and I don’t have to worry about it. However, just to be on the safe side, I make a backup copy of the feed every couple of weeks or so.
Then, it’s on my computer, and gets backed up onto the external drive too. Belts and suspenders might not be fashionable, but they can prevent embarrassing situations.
Here are the steps for exporting a backup file from Google Reader. Other RSS readers should have something similar. This technique is also useful if you decide to change to a different RSS reader.
You can export from the old one, and import in the new one. If Google ever disappears in the middle of the night, and I have to go back to Bloglines, I’ll be ready.
Export an RSS Feed
- Log in to Google Reader, and click the Settings link.
- Click on the Import/Export link
- Click the Export button
- Select a folder, and save the file. That’s it!
Good idea. For the first time in at least a couple of years, my feeds are backed up.
Jon, I didn’t think of doing this until I switched to Google Reader, and had to import my Bloglines feeds. Then I realized I’d hate to have to rebuild the list, which keeps growing.