Wednesday, January 30, 2019

I'm working on making an archive of this community using the G+ Exporter (a third party program).

I'm working on making an archive of this community using the G+ Exporter (a third party program). I tested it out last night and harvested ~1700 posts going back to the beginning (late 2012). It created an XML file I was able to import into a new Blogger blog, creating one post for each post here, including pictures! There are a few problems: 1. It's not showing the name of who made the original post. 2. It is showing names for comments, but it is not showing all comments for every post, most are only showing the last two or three. This may be due to using the free version of the program. I may try the $20 version after more research.

19 comments:

  1. Once you're done with the export, I'd love some additional feedback about how well it works for free vs. fee, Zach: I've got a group or three I'd like to back-up as well!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Note also: posts and comments for folks who have already deleted their G+ accounts probably won't display anymore. I discovered this while trying to track down one of Trent's comments about psychopomps in the Astral plane, which seems to have disappeared with his account, unfortunately....

    ReplyDelete
  3. I'd chip in for the pay version, if it turns out it'll do a better job.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Are you having fun? Cause I would spend the twenty dollars on toys and food.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I have the $20 program and will be glad to do an export of any group of which I am a member. I've got all of them back to about 2 weeks ago, maybe 3.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Chris Holmes This community is one of my toys. : )

    ReplyDelete
  7. Larry Hamilton Thanks for the offer. I will email you.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Larry Hamilton Actually, G+ won't give me your email address. Could you email me at zenopusarchives at gmail.com?

    ReplyDelete
  9. David Welborn not sure the "." will work anymore - notifications seem to be off!

    ReplyDelete
  10. I queried the developers and the missing comments issue should be fixed in a future update. I also saw they will fix the missing attribution for the posts.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Zach H I'll keep an eye on the update. The WordPress 5 backup format has different issues.I know I didn't have the attribution problem about 3 weeks ago when I downloaded a couple communities for Roll20 games I'm in. It did have an issue with images. So I need to re-download those....

    ReplyDelete
  12. I had an email yesterday evening from Google and this is the relevant bit:

    If you're a Google+ Community owner or moderator, you may download and save your data for your Google+ Community. Starting early March 2019, additional data will be available for download, including author, body, and photos for every community post in a public community.

    I haven't followed up on it yet, though, so I have no idea how it compares to your program...

    ReplyDelete
  13. Yeah, Google took its time giving community owners that ability. No idea how well it works. I'll try it and compare to G+ Exporter. The big issue is G+ only does HTML and JSON formats, at least they do for all the other downloads.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Allan Grohe I did actually just post an update yesterday in another post on this topic. I'll tag you over there.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Jon Wilson That's good, although March seems far off at this point. I ended getting the G+ Exporter license since the devs are so responsive.

    ReplyDelete