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18/03/2006
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After my recent WordPress move, many users emailed me to ask me how simple (or difficult) it was to move posts and comments from Blogger to WordPress…

It was as simple as possible I would say. I understand you have already installed the latest WordPress version 2 in the directory or root where you want it. See these official installation instructions. I installed the latest version WordPress 2.0.2 as a fresh install (In fact my Dreamhost webhosting did a one click WordPress install with MySQL database creation in a few minutes).

I tried their wiki instructions, but they were not correct. Other resources explained tips for importing into WordPress 1.5, where the blogger import script was not present and there were different tricks for importing posts and comments.

Settings in Blogger

I just ensured that some settings were inspired from different feedbacks I read elsewhere. Before doing anything, back up your Blogger blog first.

Click Formatting and change the Timestamp Format to be mm/dd/yyyy hh:mm:ss AM/PM (the first choice in the dropdown menu).
Click Archiving and set Archive Frequency to ‘monthly’
These settings are already set in Blogger by default. I already had these settings in my blog anyway, so effectively I made no change my Blogger settings.

Settings in WordPress

Login into WordPress. Go to Import. Click on Blogger – “Import posts and comments from a Blogger account”. Fill in your blogger username and password.

It will list all your blogger blogs as you see on the Blogger dashboard. Click on the blog you want to move to WordPress. And the Import will start automatically. Time taken will depend on how large your blog is. It took me a 2-3 minutes for a 1000 posts.

Remember, do not stop, reload or restart while the process is going on. It seems at times that the importing process is stuck, but it is continuing in the background. After all is done, it will tell you it is done and you can ‘Move on”…

If for some reason things get stuck, you can “reset the importer”.
View your new WordPress blog manage and see all your posts and comments are imported.

If you install WordPress in a subdirectory instead of the root of your domain, read all about hosting WordPress in an alternative directory.

Importing Bugs

- Several posts lost their formatting like text in bold, italics etc…
- The posts which had codes like javascript, html tags etc were lost these codes.
- Iframes inserted inside posts dissappeared. e.g. all those Amazon ads are displayed via iframes codes and they were gone.
- Of course all your customizations to the Blogger template need to be done again to the WordPress template now.
- Also read how to prevent errors by unclosed tags in WordPress Visual Text Editor.

Note: This post just gives my experience of importing from Blogger to WordPress. Always back up your Blogger blog before doing this. I do not take any responsibilty if this does not work for you or causes errors in your blogs.

All I can say it could not have been more easier. Nothing was affected in any way on my Blogger blog. And all posts and comments are on WordPress.

See Also

Tags: #Blogging   #Site News   #Tips   #WordPress

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102 Responses

  1. dotku says:

    would it support MSN Space transformation?

  2. kioshi says:

    Any tips? I keep getting this ‘Sorry, you need to enable sending referrers for this feature to work.’ after moving to Dreamhost. Never happened before so I know my browsers are ok.

    Thanks for the tips on importing!!

  3. rdas7 says:

    wow, awesome thanks so much for posting this. It really helped! :)

  4. Donna says:

    I’m currently trying to import from blogger but when I go to import > blogger, I only get this message.

    “Import Blogger

    Howdy! This importer allows you to import posts and comments from your Blogger account into your WordPress blog.
    This feature requires iframe support.

    Reset this importer”

    And yes, iframes is available on my firefox 1.5 and IE 6

    Any help?

  5. Joe Kennedy says:

    I’m having trouble with it. I only have 433 posts, but it keeps saying my MySQL server is timing out. Any thoughts?

  6. tom sherman says:

    Thanks for the tips. I used a lot of this information as the basis for my post, Moving from Blogger to WordPress: Best Practices. I go into some detail about maintaining the 1:1 correspondence between old Blogger entries and imported WordPress entries.

  7. r0b3rt says:

    i keep having the 504 page popping up eveytime i try to import…

  8. r0b3rt says:

    nevermind about having the 504 page popping up… my server adminstrator reset the IP address of Blogger, and i now can access to the importer… but the thing now is that I always reached the page where it says your blog doesn’t seem to accept the template or responding.. I check my blogspot blog and found that the template was changed… so wats the prob?

  9. The import fails, and destroys the display of the Blogger blog too “Find a better blogging tool: wordpress” is what it replaces the blog front page with. Restoring backups doesn’t help because Blogger can’t republish itself, even the index. Not cool of wordpress.

  10. One more detail to note: the process doesn’t work if you don’t publish through blogspot. I had a site publiched via FTP at http://example.com (names made up to protect the innocent) which wouldn’t import, so I had to change settings to use blogspot hosting.

  11. Sérgio Lima says:

    Hi,

    Congratulation. The script work fine to me.

    Thanks Very Much!

  12. MIchelle says:

    I´ve imported all my posts from blogger to WordPress. It worked fine, but i´ve lost all the text formating. The characteres are weird. Could you please help me?

    tks,
    Michelle

  13. Jayakanthan says:

    Good tips. I just transfered my blog site to wordpress and wordpress is a winner

  14. I have blogs in WP and Blogger – they are different – both have different strengths. Categories much easier to set up in WP. Both have different appearnaces in Firefox, Opera, and IE -
    it’s been astruggle getting optimum from either

  15. evan sagge says:

    What about Blogger Beta? Is it possible to imports blogs from Blogger Beta to wordpress?

  16. Hi there! Nifty walkthrough. But am having trouble trying to import Blogger Beta in (since they changed). Any ideas on this too?

  17. Jim says:

    Yeah, blogger beta doesnt work so well.. any ideas

  18. Eric Seiden says:

    I too have Blogger Beta and would love to Escape but with 300 or so posts and tons of comments, I am not going to do so until I can (relatively) easily convert my stuff. Actually, I just blogged about this very topic today.

  19. stevenV says:

    “mm/dd/yyyy hh:mm:ss AM/PM (the first choice in the dropdown menu)”

    this is, in the new version (out-of-beta), the 3rd choice in the menu now.

  20. vcomputer says:

    these informations and links are enough for wordpress 2
    thanks

  21. TJantunen says:

    Hi,
    I wrote these http://tjantunen.com/2007/03/21/import-blogger-posts-to-wordpress/
    simple instructions how to import blogger beta posts to wordpress easily and without using any plugins.

  22. MaryJames says:

    Hola all

    How I can change avatar in this forum?

  23. nakliyat says:

    It is nice.Do you have also a plugin for blogger wordpress convertion ?

    Regards

  24. I just used your tutorial to export my sister’s blog from Blogger to her new WordPress blog. Your help was great. Thanks!

  25. Sushi Dating says:

    I did not know there is a way to moving comments from blogger to wordpress. Good to know. Thanks!

  26. Milli22 says:

    I go into some detail about maintaining, and i now can access to the importer… but the thing now is that I always reached the page where it says your blog

  27. oyunlar says:

    thankss
    I did not know there is a way to moving comments from blogger to wordpress. Good to know. Thanks!

  28. Helen says:

    Hi, I get the following message when trying to import. I have minimal tech knowledge – can someone please help me?

    Unable to find the socket transport “ssl” – did you forget to enable it when you configured PHP?

  29. Hi, I get the following message when trying to import. I have minimal tech knowledge – can someone please help me?

    that like you

  30. Congratulation. The script work fine to me.

    Thanks

  31. seks shop says:

    thanks you wery much

  32. nakliyat says:

    Thank you very much

  33. Good tips. I just transfered my blog site to wordpress and wordpress is a winner.. Thanks..

  34. Oyunlar says:

    Tahnk you added oyunlar

  35. Rentacar says:

    i prepared my web site http://www.adarentacar.info with html and javascript with php

  36. The script work fine to me.

    Thanks so Much

  37. aldemir grup says:

    its great but someting wrong.. ?

  38. I also wrote a nice guide on how to moved from the Blogger platform to WordPress, including how to avoid duplicate content on both sites, etc.

    http://www.online-tech-tips.com/wordpress/the-best-way-to-move-from-blogger-beta-to-wordpress/

    Check it out before you make the switch!

  39. bozcaada says:

    I did not know there is a way to moving comments from blogger to wordpress.

  40. çanakkale says:

    Good tips. I just transfered my blog site to wordpress and wordpress is a winner

  41. Steve says:

    Thanks alot that saved me some time writting import scripts.

  42. small says:

    The script work fine to me.

  43. OOM says:

    Do you happen to know if you can import WordPress posts & comments into Blogger?

  44. thankss
    I did not know there is a way to moving comments from blogger to wordpress.like

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