We’ve previously discussed about automating WordPress with IFTTT. In that article we’ve discussed how to connect social platforms to IFTTT and take advantage of this amazing service that connects different platforms with each other. While IFTTT (short for If This Then That) can do many amazing things, here’s one more recipe for IFTTT that creates simple backup of your blog posts in text files and then uploads it to Dropbox.
You must be wondering that why should we backup blog posts in plain text files in Dropbox. The answer is very simple – text files are easy to read on any computer running any operating system. It doesn’t require you to install any type of program to read such files. You can access them from any device, even from your smartphone and tablet.
Of course database backups are important but if you are searching for something more simple, then this method is what you should try. We’re going to take a look at a simple IFTTT recipe that creates plain text backup of every new post in your Dropbox folder.
IFTTT will monitor your blog for new post through RSS Feeds and when it finds a new post, it will automatically create a plain text file in your Dropbox. The text file will contain the complete HTML (with image URLs) of your post. Let’s take a closer look at how this can be done.
Step 1: Visit IFTTT and sign-up if you are a new user. Once signed-up, click on “Create” from the top navigation bar to start creating a recipe.
Step 2: Click on “This.” A list of trigger channel appears. Click on the icon of “Feed.”
Step 3: This will open two options. Click on “New feed item.”
Step 4: In the Feed URL, enter the full URL of your blog’s RSS Feed and click on “Create Trigger.”
Step 5: Now, click on “That.” From the action channel, click on “Dropbox.”
Step 6: Click on “Append to a Text File.” This means that IFTTT will append your blog posts to a text file. Once a file’s size reaches 2MB, a new file will be created in your Dropbox. You can also select “create a text file” which means that a new text file will be created each time a new post is found.
Step 7: From this screen, you can change set the Dropbox folder path, file name and configure what you want in the content. For example; entry title means the title of your post, entry content means the content of your post, etc. Once you configure these options, click on the “Create Action” button.
Step 8: Write a description of your personal recipe and hit the “Create Recipe” button.
That’s all you need to do. Now whenever a new blog post is published, IFTTT will create or update the text file in your Dropbox folder at the specified path. If you ever want to recover lost posts, then you know where to access them from. Do try out this recipe and let us know what you think about it.
Note: This should not be used as a replacement to your normal WordPress backup procedure. This method will only backup your posts and not other elements like images, theme files, and more. Also it won’t backup your old posts.