March 18th, 2006

Import Blogger Posts & Comments to Wordpress Easily

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.

If you like this post, then please subscribe to my full text RSS feed. You can also subscribe by email and have new posts sent to your inbox.

Read more
Import / Export Full Wordpress.com Blog With Comments
Official Digg Blog Switches to Wordpress
Blogger Asks Features and Suggestions
Batch Categories Wordpress Plugin : Bulk Edit Your Categories
Download New Wordpress 2.0.3 Update

Comments

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1. dotku | 19/03/06 #

would it support MSN Space transformation?
2. kioshi | 26/03/06 #

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 | 28/03/06 #

wow, awesome thanks so much for posting this. It really helped!
4. Donna | 16/04/06 #

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. best online casino | 22/04/06 #

nice info, thanks..
6. Joe Kennedy | 9/05/06 #

I’m having trouble with it. I only have 433 posts, but it keeps saying my MySQL server is timing out. Any thoughts?
7. tom sherman | 21/05/06 #

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.
8. r0b3rt | 29/05/06 #

i keep having the 504 page popping up eveytime i try to import…
9. r0b3rt | 31/05/06 #

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?
10. Benjamin Melançon | 8/06/06 #

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.
11. Robert Schumann | 1/07/06 #

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.
12. Sérgio Lima | 21/08/06 #

Hi,

Congratulation. The script work fine to me.

Thanks Very Much!
13. MIchelle | 22/08/06 #

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
14. Jayakanthan | 23/08/06 #

Good tips. I just transfered my blog site to wordpress and wordpress is a winner
15. Arthur Browning | 25/08/06 #

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
16. Walter | 5/10/06 #

Hello, you have great site!
17. evan sagge | 16/10/06 #

What about Blogger Beta? Is it possible to imports blogs from Blogger Beta to wordpress?
18. Jasmin Tuffile | 4/12/06 #

Hi there! Nifty walkthrough. But am having trouble trying to import Blogger Beta in (since they changed). Any ideas on this too?
19. Jim | 5/12/06 #

Yeah, blogger beta doesnt work so well.. any ideas
20. Eric Seiden | 12/12/06 #

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.
21. stevenV | 25/12/06 #

“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.
22. vcomputer | 27/03/07 #

these informations and links are enough for wordpress 2
thanks
23. TJantunen | 3/04/07 #

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.
24. eunice | 18/04/07 #

NICE ONE!
25. MaryJames | 24/05/07 #

Hola all

How I can change avatar in this forum?
26. nakliyat | 1/07/07 #

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

Regards
27. Trevor Carpenter | 11/07/07 #

I just used your tutorial to export my sister’s blog from Blogger to her new Wordpress blog. Your help was great. Thanks!
28. evden eve nakliyat | 1/08/07 #

it s nice and enough for wp
thanks
29. evden eve nakliyat | 1/08/07 #

these informations and links are enough
30. nakliyat | 1/08/07 #

thanks for these information
31. ekinturkmen | 3/08/07 #

thanks you
32. Sushi Dating | 11/08/07 #

I did not know there is a way to moving comments from blogger to wordpress. Good to know. Thanks!
33. Milli22 | 12/08/07 #

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
34. oyunlar | 10/09/07 #

thankss
I did not know there is a way to moving comments from blogger to wordpress. Good to know. Thanks!
35. Helen | 12/09/07 #

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?
36. web tasarım | 13/09/07 #

thank you.
37. www.r10.net küresel ısınmaya hayır seo yarışması | 21/09/07 #

Thanks
38. Bedava oyun oyna | 26/09/07 #

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

that like you
39. Oyunlar Oyna indir | 26/09/07 #

thankss
I did not know there is a way to moving comments from blogger to wordpress.like
40. web tasarım ankara | 28/09/07 #

Congratulation. The script work fine to me.

Thanks
41. seks shop | 29/09/07 #

thanks
42. seks shop | 29/09/07 #

thanks you wery much
43. nakliyat | 6/10/07 #

Thank you very much
44. merve sevi | 19/10/07 #

thank youÇ:)
45. www.r10.net küresel ısınmaya hayır seo yarışması | 20/10/07 #

Good tips. I just transfered my blog site to wordpress and wordpress is a winner.. Thanks..
46. zayiflama diyet | 21/10/07 #

great tips, thanks!
47. Oyunlar | 26/10/07 #

Tahnk you added oyunlar
48. Rentacar | 30/10/07 #

i prepared my web site http://www.adarentacar.info with html and javascript with php
49. siemens yangin | 30/10/07 #

The script work fine to me.

Thanks so Much
50. aldemir grup | 8/11/07 #

its great but someting wrong.. ?
51. santé | 11/11/07 #

thank you
52. oyun | 19/11/07 #

thanks….
53. Aseem Kishore | 27/11/07 #

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!
54. kız oyunları | 29/11/07 #

Thanks
55. bozcaada | 29/11/07 #

I did not know there is a way to moving comments from blogger to wordpress.
56. çanakkale | 29/11/07 #

Good tips. I just transfered my blog site to wordpress and wordpress is a winner
57. Steve | 9/12/07 #

Thanks alot that saved me some time writting import scripts.
58. liseli | 10/12/07 #

Good tips.
59. small | 13/12/07 #

The script work fine to me.
60. OOM | 13/12/07 #

Do you happen to know if you can import Wordpress posts & comments into Blogger?
61. kraloyun | 16/12/07 #

thanks…
62. televizyon seyret | 16/12/07 #

thankss
I did not know there is a way to moving comments from blogger to wordpress.like
63. aşk | 17/12/07 #

çok sağol dostum
64. güzel sözler | 17/12/07 #

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66. Ensest Hikaye | 24/12/07 #

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76. dijital baskı | 11/01/08 #

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77. promosyon | 11/01/08 #

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78. FeR | 12/01/08 #

hi!
I’ve tried importing my posts but it just wouldn’t work. I read from somewhere else that I need to set the archive to “no archive” (because I had a problem that wordpress only imported the first post of the month from blogger!)…I’ve tried that and the “monthly” archive option but to no avail..

It keeps getting stuck after importing 4 posts then the button turns into “set author”

I have about 800posts, shouldn’t be a problem, right?
79. local world | 13/01/08 #

Great post!…I try to do this myself weekly, and it does pay off. It gets your name and site out there for more people to see it
80. asdasda | 14/01/08 #

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84. tedavisi | 21/01/08 #

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85. resimler | 2/02/08 #

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86. ödev | 3/02/08 #

Good tips. I just transfered my blog site to wordpress and wordpress is a winner
87. kadin | 5/02/08 #

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88. youtube | 5/02/08 #

Great post!…I try to do this myself weekly, and it does pay off. It gets your name and site out there for more people to see it
89. ilahiler | 11/02/08 #

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90. zayıflama | 11/02/08 #

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91. günlüğüm | 15/02/08 #

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92. bedava oyunlar | 18/02/08 #

I did not know there is a way to moving comments from blogger to wordpress.
93. müzik dinle | 18/02/08 #

I follow what Joshua Porter is doing, and I think he nailed it, personal value must preced network value. In this case, Facebook has 0 value if you don’t added friends yet. zero. nada. still here ..
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96. oyunlar | 1/03/08 #

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I did not know there is a way to moving comments from blogger to wordpress.
97. nargile | 13/03/08 #

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105. giysi giydirme oyunları | 10/04/08 #

Great post!…I try to do this myself weekly, and it does pay off. It gets your name and site out there for more people to see it
106. kız oyunları | 10/04/08 #

I’ve tried importing my posts but it just wouldn’t work. I read from somewhere else that I need to set the archive to “no archive” (because I had a problem that wordpress only imported the first post of the month from blogger!)…I’ve tried that and the “monthly” archive option but to no avail..

It keeps getting stuck after importing 4 posts then the
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108. resimler | 12/04/08 #

. dotku | March 19th, 2006 #
would it support MSN Space transformation?

dotku: yes it should
109. müzik dinle | 14/04/08 #

cool way it is explained! thanks very much..
110. video watch | 15/04/08 #

Good tips. I just transfered my blog site to wordpress and wordpress is a winner
111. tasarim | 11/05/08 #

thank you for great article….