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How to download your AOL Journal or Hometown with BackStreet Browser.

Last updated 10-15-2008 with "Copy To" steps.

AOL Hometown and Journals will close down on Oct. 31st. All journals and uploaded content will be deleted, so download your files from AOL's servers as soon as possible. What follows is a tutorial for Windows users on how to use BackStreet Browser to download your files from AOL.

UPDATE 10-8-2008: Hi, J-Land members. Thanks for stopping by. Good news for you today - instead of downloading your journals using FTP, a traditional web browser, WGet or Backstreet Browser (methods that all have their drawbacks) as of this morning you can now export (that is, "transfer") your journal directly to Blogger by following the simple steps on this Blogger Help page. If you want to then export your blog to Wordpress, just follow these instructions. As I find more platforms you can export your new Blogger blog to, I will add more links to this post.

The best way to back up your AOL Journals and Hometown websites is with an absolutely free website downloader called BackStreet Browser. I tested this downloader on the Magic Smoke Blog at AOL and my own blogs and it worked perfectly. Downloading your files is fast, easy and does not require any action on your part once you set BackStreet Browser up. Let's get started.

1. Download and install BackStreet Browser.

Download the BackStreet Browser and save it your Desktop, then click on the saved file to run the Installer and follow the prompts it gives you. The downloader will be ready to launch in just a minute.

2. Select the website to download.

Attention dial-up users: If you use a dial-up connection, see this screen shot for instructions on how to set it up.

The first screen that pops up (if it doesn't, go to File -> Tools or click on New to start a new project) will ask you to set your Project Properties. Copy and paste the link to your AOL journal or website into the box next to where it says URL.

Enter URL of website to download.

Type the name of your project next to where it says Title.

If you're happy with the default Folder location you can leave it alone; otherwise click on the little yellow folder to the right of where it says Folder, then navigate to the folder you want to save your files to.

3. Adjust BackStreet Browser settings.

The tab you're on near the middle of the window says Load. You can leave the Load settings alone or change them if you like. Repeat for tabs to the right of Load: File Filter, URL Filter, the Connection tab (which you can use to connect through FTP or an HTTP proxy) and Others (which you can use to keep AOL's folder structure or to create a single folder to save all your files).

FYI: I left all of these settings alone. The default settings should work fine for most users.

4. Download your website.

When you're done tweaking your settings, press OK. The website download will start automatically. Depending on how many files you're downloading and the content of each file, it can take anywhere from a few minutes to an hour to download all of your files.

5. View and work with your files.

When the download is finished, there will be a side panel in the BackStreet Browser window with a folder in it. The name of the top folder will be Workspace and it will have a button with a little plus sign next to it. Click the button to expand the folder tree. The next folder will contain the files you downloaded from AOL and will also have a button with a plus sign next to it. Click the button to show the folders beneath it, and keep repeating until you get to the files themselves.

Viewing and working with your files.

Click on image to expand it.

Click on the files and the URLs to your actual pages will show up in the right hand panel. Move your cursor to the right-hand panel and click on a link to open it in the BackStreet Browser. It's that simple.

When you're done BackStreet browser will automatically "save your workspace" so you don't have to, but if you want you can click File and Save Workspace, give your workspace a name and choose where you want to save it.

6. Copy and save your files to a new location.

BackStreet Browser automatically makes a back up of every file you download and saves it to Program Files->BackStreet Browser-> Data, but if you want to save a second copy of your Journal or Hometown files to your computer, here's how.

After the download finishes and all of your files are automatically relinked, click the Copy To button along the top left of the window.

Click 'Copy to' Button to copy files to new or existing folder on your PC.

A box will open that will ask you browse to the folder you want to save your downloaded files to. Either select a folder from the choices given, or click the Create button to create a new folder.

Select folder to copy files to, or click 'Create' for a new one.

If you choose to create a new folder, it will automatically be given the name "New Folder". Click on that name to change it. I changed my folder's name to "My AOL Journal".

The Sometimes Blog has a new tutorial up that covers all the finer points on how to use BackStreet Browser. It's an excellent guide to help you learn exactly how BackStreet works - go check it out!

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Posted on Oct. 3rd, 2008 at 01:32 am | | Leave a Comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend

Comments

[info]sometimesblog.com

Cool. Nice work - Thank You for taking the time to put this together. I think it'll help.
Posted on Oct. 4th, 2008 03:37 am (UTC) | | Thread | Reply

[info]anti_aol

You're welcome.
Posted on Oct. 7th, 2008 11:55 pm (UTC) | | Parent | Thread | Reply

[info]http://openid.aol.com/justcherie

Thanks for posting this! While I haven't updated my AOL journal since 2005, I really hated to think of all of it just going "Poof!"
Posted on Oct. 4th, 2008 01:11 pm (UTC) | | Thread | Reply

[info]anti_aol

You're welcome.
Posted on Oct. 7th, 2008 11:55 pm (UTC) | | Parent | Thread | Reply

(Anonymous)

No success

I tried this program, but had no luck with it. It seemed to download an image of the main blog page, but I got no archival files at all. I wasn't able to follow any links off the main page, and every file folder listed in the tree contained 0 bytes. If I'm doing something wrong, I'd love to figure out what it is. Any suggestions?

Paul
http://journals.aol.ca/plittle/AuroraWalkingVacation/
Posted on Oct. 4th, 2008 11:39 pm (UTC) | | Thread | Reply

[info]marahmarie

Re: No success

I downloaded your entire journal with BackStreet in under 5 minutes. I have a complete copy of it on my computer now. Click the link below (or copy and paste it into your browser since I'm not sure if my style sheet formats unanchored links) to see a full-size screen cap of your journal downloaded to my computer.

http://pics.livejournal.com/marahmarie/pic/0000xxsw

You can try one of two things: either try to redownload the files - instructions are here:

http://pics.livejournal.com/marahmarie/pic/0000z19t

Or start a new project to download your journal all over again from scratch (this will create a new containing folder to hold it) and don't touch the default settings for the project. You don't need to change any of those settings to download your journal (I didn't touch those settings), so if you did change them that *might* be at fault. If so, start a new project by following the steps above again, and leave your settings for the project exactly as-is.

If you do either re-download your journal or start a new project for it, remember to "save your workspace" when you are done, just to be on the safe side (the browser should automatically save all the files and folders for you, but I haven't used it for that long and I don't know it *that* well so just to be sure, make sure you save your work before you close BackStreet down).

Edited at 2008-10-05 12:40 am (UTC)
Posted on Oct. 5th, 2008 12:37 am (UTC) | | Parent | Thread | Reply

(Anonymous)

error message?

I keep getting an error message saying:
SSL certificate problem, verify that the CA cert is OK. I'm not techi enough to understand all this. Any suggestions? OH, my journal is private. Does that matter?
Posted on Oct. 6th, 2008 04:00 pm (UTC) | | Thread | Reply

[info]anti_aol

Re: error message?

Yes, it matters. A lot. I have a test journal on LJ that I can make private test entries to so I'll get back to you on that. I want to tell you to sign in using HTTP Authentication, but until I try it myself I don't know for sure, so hang on.

Edited at 2008-10-06 05:43 pm (UTC)
Posted on Oct. 6th, 2008 05:42 pm (UTC) | | Parent | Thread | Reply

(Anonymous)

Re: error message?

OK - thank you!
Posted on Oct. 6th, 2008 06:03 pm (UTC) | | Parent | Thread | Reply

[info]anti_aol

Re: error message?

I'm going to have contact the software author. I can't solve it. I set wellideclare.livejournal.com (my test journal) to private entries and tried downloading them with both normal (default) parameters and using HTTP Authentication. Neither method worked - in my case, the Calendar and other public pages were downloaded, but not the private entries themselves. Sorry - I'm stumped.

As soon as the author answers me I'll let you know what he says.

Edited at 2008-10-06 06:15 pm (UTC)
Posted on Oct. 6th, 2008 06:14 pm (UTC) | | Parent | Thread | Reply

[info]anti_aol

Re: error message?

Sent an email to the software author explaining the problem. Also invited him or her to comment here with a solution if they want.
Posted on Oct. 6th, 2008 06:46 pm (UTC) | | Parent | Thread | Reply

[info]anti_aol

Re: error message?

As to the error message, I looked it up; it's server-side, not client-side. That means there's nothing you can do about it except to contact AOL and give them the exact error message you received. They have to fix the error, which involves their certificates and possibly their database and/or scripting languages, and there's nothing you can do until they do.

The inability to download a private journal is a completely separate issue from that; one has nothing to do with the other from what I can see, so people will have problems downloading private journals whether they receive the error message you did or not.
Posted on Oct. 7th, 2008 02:54 am (UTC) | | Parent | Thread | Reply

(Anonymous)

Re: error message?

I appreciate everything you've suggested and also for going that extra mile for us. What I did was just simply make my journal public again so I could download it; it did download after that. The only problem I have is, some entries are there and some are not. :-/ I switched to LJ in '05 after the "ad issue" but then caved and went back to AOL but thank goodness, I did keep a duplicate journal on LJ so I only have from 2003-05 to worry about. (I just manually copied my most precious entries) I personally prefer LJ over AOL or blogspot. And I think I read somewhere that our journals will automatically be transferred to blogger? I hope that will be a smooth transition. I'm not taking any chances.

thanks again!
Posted on Oct. 7th, 2008 11:38 am (UTC) | | Parent | Thread | Reply

[info]anti_aol

Re: error message?

Are some of your AOL entries set to "private"? I'm having the same problem with some AOL journals, now that I've had a chance to check the offline files one-by-one.

On the other hand, my public LJ entries seem to all download. I downloaded Anti-AOL again to make sure and BackStreet grabbed over 7 MBs (I never realized I have that much data much on here). LJ's directory structure is easier to follow than AOL's is, so I can tell at a glance that it looks like I got everything.
Posted on Oct. 7th, 2008 11:36 pm (UTC) | | Parent | Thread | Reply

[info]aims814

Re: error message?

OK - I deleted all of my files that I downloaded from both AOL Js and re-downloaded them. I was able to download some of 2003 and 2008. Everything in between just cannot be retrieved. Just for fun, I made some of my LJ entries public, downloaded my LJ and it works just fine. I'm convinced it's an AOL thing. -- The bastards --

again, thanks for all of your help to those of us who have NO clue how this works. BTW - I just now realized you're using LJ. =)
Posted on Oct. 8th, 2008 02:38 pm (UTC) | | Parent | Thread | Reply

[info]http://journals.aol.com/sunflowerkat321/

I have two AOL journals and cannot download either with this program. With each attempt, I get only one file (index...with a triangle icon containing and exclamation point). It displays as "This Page Cannot Be Displayed". One journal is public and one is private. I assume a private journal will need a password for access. Can you help?

Thanks-
Kat
Posted on Oct. 6th, 2008 07:41 pm (UTC) | | Thread | Reply

[info]anti_aol

I'm sorry a few of you are having problems with it. It's been working fine for me on AOL journals and LJs alike since my first night using it.

Anyone who wants a video tutorial on how to use BackStreet Browser (but it's not hard, really) let me know in the comments; enough "aye" votes and I'll do one.

I downloaded Sunflowers in it's entirety about 2 minutes ago. It took me only a minute. You can see the files I captured and one of your pages from about 4 years ago open in the browser in the following screen shot:

http://pics.livejournal.com/anti_aol/pic/000qrbw2

In the case of private journals, there is a problem, which I've confirmed through my own tests. I have a ticket in with the software developer and I'm waiting to hear back from him (or her) as to how to resolve it.

In the meantime, before you give up, make sure you try to download your private journals with HTTP Authentication before leaving me a comment saying the program isn't working (just to rule out any false results).

How to set up HTTP Authentication is shown in the next screen shot (you can access the window for it under the Connection tab, then look for where it says "HTTP Authentication" near the bottom of that window, then just fill in your journal address and password and press "OK"):

http://pics.livejournal.com/anti_aol/pic/000qs74f
Posted on Oct. 7th, 2008 02:17 am (UTC) | | Parent | Thread | Reply

(Anonymous)

I'm thrilled you were able to download my photoblog and I need to find out how I can get the files from you. I'm baffled as to why I can't get it to work myself. I've followed your instructions to the letter (and it's not complicated) but all I ever get is an index file. I will be watching for information here on how to download a private journal. Thank you for all your help.

Kat
sunflowerkat321@aol.com
Posted on Oct. 7th, 2008 09:28 pm (UTC) | | Parent | Thread | Reply

[info]anti_aol

Did you try putting "http://" before the address? Like so:

http://journals.aol.com/sunflowerkat321/

If you don't put the "http://" before the address it won't download a thing.

I'm sorry I won't be able to help AOL users by transferring their files to them. If anyone wants to use the PayPal button found in the sidebar of this blog to donate at least $5 to me for the time and trouble such a job will entail, I will definitely reconsider.

Anyone I do that for agrees they might not receive all of their files (since apparently, from my tests and other comments left here, AOL is not allowing us access to every single entry, even on public blogs) and understands that I will transfer every single file that I'm able to download, but that I can't do any more than that.
Posted on Oct. 7th, 2008 11:44 pm (UTC) | | Parent | Thread | Reply

(Anonymous)

I have used the http:// consistently. I've tried it from two different computers. I always get the same result. It runs just a second and I have one small file named index.

I appreciate everything you are doing to help. If I cannot get something to work locally, I'll be happy to pay you for my files.

Kat
sunflowerkat321@aol.com
Posted on Oct. 8th, 2008 12:17 am (UTC) | | Parent | Thread | Reply

[info]donna-justme.blogspot.com

Looks like it's working

I've got my files transferring right now; once it's done and I see it has worked, I'll be linking to this entry of yours on both my AOL journal and Blogspot.
Posted on Oct. 7th, 2008 07:49 pm (UTC) | | Thread | Reply

[info]anti_aol

Re: Looks like it's working

Thank you! Always glad to hear a success story.
Posted on Oct. 7th, 2008 08:00 pm (UTC) | | Parent | Thread | Reply

[info]donna-justme.blogspot.com

oops

It only shows my journal pages when I'm connected to the Internet. If I turn off my DSL, nothing.

Posted on Oct. 7th, 2008 08:10 pm (UTC) | | Thread | Reply

[info]skellorg

This looks like a very useful tool for legitimate use; I'm generally wary of website downloaders though, having been on the wrong side of illegitimate use. To say they can do a number on bandwidth is an understatement, not to mention copyright issues. I don't really like the look of their RafaBot either, but this is all beside the point - at this point. I'll just have to download and install them and see how to exclude them in my robots.txt. ;)

I will pass on the link to a friend of mine who has a huge hometown AOL site, though. Thanks. :)
Posted on Oct. 7th, 2008 08:31 pm (UTC) | | Thread | Reply

[info]anti_aol

You're welcome.
Posted on Oct. 7th, 2008 11:54 pm (UTC) | | Parent | Thread | Reply

[info]donna-justme.blogspot.com

OK, it's working after all

I didn't realize it was still copying to my computer. Thank you so much for this!
Posted on Oct. 7th, 2008 08:36 pm (UTC) | | Thread | Reply

[info]anti_aol

Re: OK, it's working after all

You're welcome.
Posted on Oct. 7th, 2008 11:45 pm (UTC) | | Parent | Thread | Reply

(Anonymous)

Will we still have access to our backed up copy of our journal after it has been deleted though?
Posted on Oct. 7th, 2008 10:56 pm (UTC) | | Thread | Reply

[info]anti_aol

Yes. BackStreet Browser saves copies of every .html file, .css file and image file that AOL allows it to access to your computer's hard drive.

If you want to see for yourself, with BackStreet closed, navigate to Start->My Computer->Program Files->BackStreet Browser->Data, then open the Data folder and look around inside each of the sub-folders. All of your files are in those sub-folders.

Edited at 2008-10-08 01:47 am (UTC)
Posted on Oct. 7th, 2008 11:51 pm (UTC) | | Parent | Thread | Reply

(Anonymous)

Downloading Private AOL Journals

Marah (and Anti-AOL followers),

There has been some questions on downloading Private AOL Journals, and for that, I have some perspective on how to do that.

To download a private journals, I'd like to mention it IS possible with some manipulation. I don't know if BackStreet Browser can do it, but I *know* Wget can. (My method on this is posted here: http://www.joemanna.com/blog/aol-users-how-to-backup-aol-journals-to-your-computer/ )

The way that a Journal and about 99% of the Web secures content and delivers it to you is through authentication. AOL uses a component on their service known as the "ScreenName Service" which basically means when you login to AOL, any time. Whenever you login, the server will set an authentication cookie when tells the server that you're logged in.

Briefly, you would clear your cache and cookies, then login with your Web browser, then find that cookie and use that same coookie (aka, Session), and crawl it and use the authenticated cookie to crawl a private journal.

Use the following commands in your Wget command:

--cookies=on --load-cookies=cookie.txt --keep-session-cookies --save-cookies=cookie.txt

You’d copy over the data of the authenticated AOL cookie into the a cookie.txt file in the Wget bin folder and do that.

If desired, I could demonstrate this in a video if enough people want me to, because this is pretty darn complex; and it's a shame AOL is forcing users to employ the use of UNIX applications just to save their blog.


~Joe
http://www.joemanna.com/blog/
Posted on Oct. 8th, 2008 12:52 am (UTC) | | Thread | Reply

[info]anti_aol

Re: Downloading Private AOL Journals

Thanks, Joe. I agree this has come to a bad end for AOL Journal and Hometown users.

If anyone wants to look through BackStreet's help files with me (they're massive) they're here:

http://www.spadixbd.com/backstreet/help/overview.htm

I've looked through every help file and while I admit I'm speed-reading to absorb as much as I can as fast as I can, I swear I don't see anything about how to set session cookies. I thought that was what HTTP Authentication was for - but HTTP Authentication is not working to download private journals. :)

Additionally, I've emailed the software developer twice but he or she hasn't answered yet, so I would abandon hope that I will receive a reply.

Also, on the Sunflower journal above I was able to download most of it - it seems - but not all of it. I came up with a few empty files and I don't know why: are their private entries on that journal? Is BackStreet crawling pages that Kat already deleted? Is BackStreet unable to download certain pages for other reasons?

I don't have my own AOL Journal to work from - actually, I do - but AOL gives me an error message when I try to access it, saying the username is not in their database - so I can't download anything from it. I'm pretty much at my wit's end.
Posted on Oct. 8th, 2008 01:26 am (UTC) | | Parent | Thread | Reply

(Anonymous)

Re: Downloading Private AOL Journals

The journal you downloaded for me is not private and never has been. Also, I have not deleted anything from that journal. So...I guess the missing files remain a mystery.

Thank you for the link to the help files. I'll try and sift through them too and maybe come up with something.

I tried again tonight to download the journal that you were successful with. Still no luck.

Kat
sunflowerkat321@aol.com
Posted on Oct. 8th, 2008 03:18 am (UTC) | | Parent | Thread | Reply

[info]anti_aol

Re: Downloading Private AOL Journals

In the case of Photographically Challenged there are some empty files but if you open the containing folders beneath them (the ones labeled "26 Things") then click on the subfolders beneath those, I think you are going to find your missing files.

If not, try starting over. Delete the last project. Download each one of your AOL journals again separately, just one at a time (that means creating three "New Projects").

When you're done you should have three folders, with one journal in each:

One folder that contains:

http://journals.aol.com/sunflowerkat321/in-my-dreams-i-can-fly.../

One folder that contains:

http://journals.aol.com/sunflowerkat321/SunflowerFigments/

One folder that contains:

http://journals.aol.com/sunflowerkat321/PhotographicallyChallenged/

Again, if you encounter empty files, like I am, expand them in the tree view, open every subfolder beneath them, and see if you find your missing files. If not, let me know.
Posted on Oct. 8th, 2008 03:55 am (UTC) | | Parent | Thread | Reply

(Anonymous)

Re: Downloading Private AOL Journals

Today when I tried a download, I got the single index file and I got an error....Cannot write to Local File. This occured when I double clicked on the index file icon on the right. It occurs regardless of whether I try to let it write to the default location or a folder that I designate. Seems this should be a clue...

Thanks for trying on all those journals. Ultimately, I'm only interested in preserving "Dreams" and my private journal.
Posted on Oct. 8th, 2008 11:00 am (UTC) | | Parent | Thread | Reply

(Anonymous)

Re: Downloading Private AOL Journals

Ooops...that was me. I forgot to sign.

Kat
sunflowerkat321@aol.com
Posted on Oct. 8th, 2008 11:01 am (UTC) | | Parent | Thread | Reply

(Anonymous)

Re: Downloading Private AOL Journals

You HAVE to make your AOL private journals PUBLIC for the time period in which you are doing this. I have two Private AOL journals...one dating back 3 years. I attempted to do this transfer without making my journal PUBLIC, and then re-tried it AFTER I made it public because I remember reading how BLOGGER would make you do the same thing.

AOL will tell you that all your private comments will be deleted. Click OK because THIS PROGRAM STILL TRANSFERS ALL COMMENTS OVER! I was thrilled when I saw that.

My 3 year old journal only took about one minute to download everything...INCLUDING PHOTOS!!! I am so RELIEVED because the BLOGGER transfer stalled on me about 10% near the end and wouldn't go any further. THAT was after several tries.

THANK YOU FOR POSTING THIS INFO! You saved my sanity tonight!
Just Jen
Posted on Oct. 9th, 2008 03:31 am (UTC) | | Parent | Thread | Reply

[info]anti_aol

Re: Downloading Private AOL Journals

You're welcome, Jen.
Posted on Oct. 9th, 2008 03:49 am (UTC) | | Parent | Thread | Reply

(Anonymous)

Only downloaded front page

I have tried twice and I only get the first page of my journal. If I click on the older entries button it tells me that "locale" doesn't exsist.
Traci
http://journals.aol.com/deshelestraci/MylifeasatransplantedYankee/
Posted on Oct. 8th, 2008 06:22 pm (UTC) | | Thread | Reply

[info]anti_aol

Re: Only downloaded front page

When you're trying to access your files do so from the Tree View in the left-hand pane, then click on the file you selected in the top middle pane, and it will open the file in the browser below that.

You cannot access your files by clicking links on pages already loaded into the browser. If you try to you will get a "Locale" 404 error from AOL and/or BackStreet Browser will give you a dialog box with an error saying it can't load "Locale".

Edited to add: the reason for that is after BackStreet downloads all your files, it "relinks" them to serve local copies to you. Thus the original URL structure is removed (the links that point to aol.com); in their place are new "URLs" that actually point to a specific location on your hard drive (example: file:///D:/Program%20Files/BackStreet%20Browser%203.1/Data/anti-aol.livejournal.com/index.html)

Edited at 2008-10-08 07:22 pm (UTC)
Posted on Oct. 8th, 2008 07:08 pm (UTC) | | Parent | Thread | Reply

(Anonymous)

Down loading saved journals

Having saved my journals to backstreet, how do I go about down loading saved journals to a new journal site?
Thus far I appreciate your efforts for my ability to save my journal.
Thank You
FMGruber at aol dot com
Posted on Oct. 8th, 2008 06:37 pm (UTC) | | Thread | Reply

[info]anti_aol

Re: Down loading saved journals

I have no idea. I'm sorry. The point of this tutorial was to offer a way to download, backup, and save your files using another method besides FTP or a traditional web browser (or WGet - though I would use Joe's method with WGet, it's not for everyone).
Posted on Oct. 8th, 2008 07:17 pm (UTC) | | Parent | Thread | Reply

[info]anti_aol

Re: Down loading saved journals

Oh, thank you God - *faints from relief* - my work here is done. Blogger now shows you how to import your journal directly from AOL to their platform (effective as of this morning):

http://help.blogger.com/bin/answer.py?answer=112742

Just upload your journals to Blogger now - from there, you can export your journal to another platform (such as Wordpress) if you like. I'll update my post (or write a new post- I'm not sure yet) to reflect this news.

Best damn thing I've heard all week.
Posted on Oct. 8th, 2008 07:42 pm (UTC) | | Parent | Thread | Reply

(Anonymous)

AOL Hometown

I know this might not be the right place to place this quetsion but here it goes:
Does AOL have/will have any other service to follow AOL Hometown?
Posted on Nov. 1st, 2008 05:52 pm (UTC) | | Thread | Reply

[info]anti_aol

Re: AOL Hometown

No. AOL has no replacement for Hometown, and is closing down AOL Pictures, Bluestring and Xdrive by Dec. 31st. See my latest post on that for a list of sites you can transfer your files to.
Posted on Nov. 2nd, 2008 04:54 am (UTC) | | Parent | Thread | Reply

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