Importing and exporting blog posts

You can move blog posts in and out of Orbit as a spreadsheet. Import brings posts in from another shop or from a file you wrote offline. Export sends your posts out as a file you can keep or edit. Both start from the Blog Posts page.

Considerations

• Import takes a CSV, XLSX or XLS file. Export gives you a choice of Excel or CSV.
• Every post belongs to a blog, so each row needs the handle of the blog it goes in. See Creating and managing blogs.
• There is no column for a post image. Open each post after the import and add its picture under Image.
• A large import or export keeps running when you close the dialog.

Prepare your file

Give the file a header row at the top and one row per post. These are the fields a column can go into:

• Title: the name of the post.
• Handle: the last part of the post's web address.
• Blog Handle: the handle of the blog the post belongs to.
• Content: the body of the post.
• Excerpt: the short summary shown on your blog listing page.
• Status: whether the post arrives as a draft or published.
• Published At: the date the post went live.
• Tags: the tags on the post.
• SEO Title and SEO Description: the search engine listing.

The import groups them as Core, Publishing and SEO, and marks the required ones with an asterisk. Your own headings do not have to match these names. You point each column at a field in the mapping step.

Tip: Click Download sample CSV at the bottom left of the import dialog and open the file. It shows the columns Orbit expects and the values they take.

Import blog posts

1. From your Orbit dashboard, go to Blog Posts.
2. Click Import. The Import blog posts dialog opens.
3. Click Add File and pick your file, or drop the file on the box.
4. To update posts you already have, tick Update blog posts with matching handles. Leave it clear and a post in the same blog with a matching handle is skipped instead.
5. Click Upload & Preview.
6. Preview import shows how many blog posts were found, how many rows the file holds, and a First blog post preview table. Check the values sit in the right fields.
7. Look at the Column mappings row. A green All required fields mapped badge means you are ready. An orange badge counts what is still missing.
8. Click Import Blog Posts.

The button stays greyed out while a required field has no column. Open the mappings and set it first.

Map your columns

Orbit reads your headings and fills in the ones it recognises. Those carry an Auto badge. To change them:

1. On Preview import, click Column mappings. The Map columns step opens.
2. Each row shows a CSV Column on the left, with a sample value from your file, and a Maps To menu on the right.
3. Pick the Orbit field for that column. A field another column already uses is greyed out and marked (already mapped).
4. Choose Do not import for any column you want to leave out.
5. Click Import Blog Posts, or Back to Preview to check the data again.

Check the result

The import starts as soon as you click Import Blog Posts. You can click Close & Continue in Background and carry on. A small indicator follows the job and reads Import queued, then Importing blog posts..., then Import completed with the number created and updated.

When it finishes, the dialog counts what happened: posts created, posts updated, posts skipped and posts failed. If rows failed, click Show error details to read them row by row, or Download CSV to take the full list away. Skipped posts get their own list: they already existed and the update option was off.

Export blog posts

1. From your Orbit dashboard, go to Blog Posts.
2. To send part of your list, first tick the posts you want, or narrow the list with Add Filter by Status or Tagged with.
3. Click Export.
4. Under Exports, choose All blog posts, Selected blog posts or Filtered results. Each one shows how many posts it covers, and a choice you cannot use is greyed out.
5. Under Export as, pick Excel Format (.xlsx) or Plain CSV (.csv).
6. Click Export blog posts. The dialog closes and Export started appears.

The export runs in the background. The indicator reads Preparing export..., then Exporting blog posts, then Export ready. The file downloads on its own when it is ready. If it does not, click Download on the indicator. Click Dismiss to clear it.

Note: All blog posts sends drafts as well as published posts. To take only the live ones, filter the list by Status first, then choose Filtered results.

Related guides

• Writing and publishing blog posts
• Creating and managing blogs
• Migrating from Shopify