How to Back Up a Squarespace Website Before Cancelling

Updated October 2026

Squarespace has no backup button. A real backup is three separate things, and only the first one is built in. Do all three while the site is still online; an expired site cannot be read.

1. The content export (built in)

Settings → Advanced → Import / Export → Export. You get a WordPress format XML file with the text of pages and posts and links to images. It is the only official export, and it does not contain the design. Keep it anyway: it is the easiest way to search your old text later.

2. The images at full size

The XML links to images on Squarespace's CDN, which stop working after the site expires. Download the originals: open each image in the browser and remove everything after the question mark in the address to get the full size file, or use a static export, which downloads every image at the largest size Squarespace serves and keeps the originals in the assets folder.

3. A static copy of the pages

This is the backup that still looks like your website. A static export renders every page in a browser, saves the HTML, CSS, fonts and images, and removes the scripts that only work on Squarespace. Open index.html on your computer and the site is there, offline, with the same look on phones and desktops. Put the folder on any host and it is online again.

What a backup cannot restore

Store products, orders and customer accounts (export orders and products as CSV from Commerce before cancelling)
Member areas and their users
Scheduling appointments and client lists (export from Scheduling)
Form submissions already received (export from the form's storage settings)
Analytics history

Checklist

Content XML downloaded
Commerce, Scheduling and form submissions exported as CSV
Static export made and opened on a phone
Domain transferred or unlocked
Email forwarding or mailboxes moved (Squarespace bundles Google Workspace; move the mailbox before cancelling)
Only then cancel

A static export takes about ten minutes and costs $79 once. Start with the free check to see your page count and what carries over.

StaticExit is not affiliated with Squarespace, Inc.