How to Back Up Your Substack: Posts, List and Images

The problem

Writers rarely think about backups until they can't reach their account. Two of them described that moment:

"If your account gets suspended, you cannot run an export until the suspension is lifted." (r/Substack, 2026-08-27)

"I was locked out of even downloading my subscribers." (r/DeclineIntoCensorship, 2026-10-20)

These are single, self-reported accounts, and we haven't verified what happened in either case. The worry behind them is common, though. In our October 2026 review of public threads on Reddit, Hacker News, GitHub and automation forums, backup and lock-in was among the most frequent writer pains: 19 of the 65 writer sources raised it, from weekly-export advice (r/Substack) to "Substack has become a roach motel but they pretend otherwise" (Hacker News). Export and download requests were also the largest theme in the issue trackers of open-source Substack tools such as sbstck-dl and Substack2Markdown.

The fix is simple, but you have to do it before you need it. Substack gives every writer a free, manual export. It is the right foundation for a backup, but it is not a complete one. Below: what the export contains as of October 2026, what it leaves out, and a routine that covers the gaps without breaking Substack's rules.

What does a Substack export include?

There are two separate exports. Most writers only know one of them.

Export	Where to find it	What you get	Speed
Publication export	Settings → Exports → "Create new export"	A zip of "posts, subscriber list, and related statistics" (Substack Help)	Asynchronous: "Once the report is ready, you'll be notified by email"
Subscriber CSV	Subscribers page → "All subscribers" → ⋯ → Export	A .csv with "all columns" or "visible columns only" (Substack Help)	Downloaded from the dashboard

The help article opens with "Anything you publish on Substack is yours to own" (Substack Help), and the Terms of Use say you own what you create, "That includes publications, subscriber lists". Exporting your own data is the intended use of the feature.

How do I export my Substack posts, step by step?

1. Sign in and open your publication's Settings page.
2. Click Exports in the left navigation bar.
3. Click "Create new export".
4. Wait for the email that says the export is ready.
5. Return to the Exports section and download the zip.
6. Unzip a copy and open a few posts to check they look right, then keep the original zip untouched.

These steps follow Substack's own article, How do I export my posts?, read on 2026-10-21. Label each download with the date (for example my-substack-2026-10-21.zip) so you can tell versions apart later.

How do I export the subscriber list?

The zip already includes a subscriber list, but the Subscribers page export gives you more control:

1. Open your dashboard and go to Subscribers.
2. Scroll to "All subscribers" and click the three dots above the list.
3. Choose Export, then pick all columns or visible columns only.

According to Substack's help centre, "all columns" can include activity such as when a subscriber last opened an email and their individual post views. "Visible columns" are the defaults, "such as the date someone subscribed and their type of plan", plus any filters you've set. One limit to know: "It's not currently possible to export a file with subscriber names."

For a backup, choose all columns. If you want to move the list to another email tool, see our guide to exporting Substack subscribers.

What does the Substack export leave out?

The export is good for text and email addresses. These are the gaps writers report:

Item	In the export?	Evidence
Post text (HTML)	Yes	Substack Help
Subscriber emails, plan and dates	Yes	Substack Help
Subscriber names	No	Same article: "not currently possible"
Image files	Links only, per a writer's check	r/Substack
Notes	Not listed in the help article	Trustpilot review
Comments	Not listed in the help article	Substack Help
A single post	No, whole archive only, per a writer	r/Substack

The images gap matters most. A writer who examined the zip put it this way: "Your export links to images hosted on Substack rather than including the files. If the account goes, the posts survive and the pictures do not." (r/Substack, 2026-08-27). Notes are a similar story. One Trustpilot reviewer wrote, "Exporting your "notes" is unnecessarily difficult!" (Trustpilot, 2025-09-18).

What to do about it:

• Images: keep the originals you upload in a folder on your own disk, organised by post. This is the simplest fix and needs no tools.
• Notes: if a Note matters, paste it into a document when you post it.
• Comments: if a discussion matters to you, save the page from your browser.

What happens to my data if I lose access or delete my publication?

Substack is unlikely to lose your data. The risk is losing access to it, as the writers quoted above describe. A backup you made last week is the only one you can count on in that moment. Deletion is final too: Substack's help article on deleting a publication says your "content and email list will be permanently deleted" and points you to the exports first (Substack Help).

How often should I back up my Substack?

Match the cadence to how fast your list changes:

Your situation	Suggested cadence
Publishing weekly, list growing steadily	Weekly subscriber CSV, monthly full export
Publishing monthly or less	Monthly full export
Paid publication, or any account warning	Weekly full export
Before a migration, a big import or a policy dispute	Export the same day

Experienced writers say much the same. One commenter with "20 years" of experience gives the rule as "export your subscribers weekly" (r/Substack). Another writer says, "What I do have is a full data export every month, read into a database" (r/Substack, 2026-10-11).

What about the "three exports for life" claim? A 2025 Reddit post said "we only get THREE exports. Total. For lifetime.", but the post was promoting a third-party downloader (r/Substack, 2025-02-05). A reply in the same thread reads: "I've exported my information more than three times. I consider it a monthly backup." As of October 2026, no Substack help article mentions an export limit. If you ever hit one, the error message is the real source to go by.

Where should I store my Substack backup?

Keep at least two copies, with one of them off your computer:

Location	Good for	Watch out for
Your own disk or external drive	Fast restores; no third party	Disk failure, theft
A cloud drive you control	Survives a lost laptop	Share settings: keep it private
An encrypted archive (zip with a password, or an encrypted volume)	Subscriber CSVs	Losing the password
A private Git repository	Post text, with history	Never commit the subscriber CSV to a public repo

Treat the subscriber CSV as personal data. Under Substack's Publisher Agreement you control your list, which also makes you responsible for keeping it safe. Encrypt it, don't email it around, and delete old copies you no longer need.

Can I back up my Substack automatically?

As of October 2026, there is no official scheduled export. You start every export by hand in Settings, and Substack has no public API for exports. Here is what does work:

• A calendar reminder. Set it weekly or monthly. The whole routine takes a few minutes, and it is the approach we recommend.
• Your own source of truth. The writer quoted above now keeps "the markdown file on my own disk as the real version" and treats the Substack post as a copy (r/Substack). If you draft outside Substack, your posts and images are backed up before you hit publish.
• Community download tools. Open-source projects such as sbstck-dl and Substack2Markdown download posts and images into local files. They work by reading Substack's web pages, and Substack's Terms of Use prohibit crawling or scraping and copying or storing "any significant portion of the content on Substack". If you use one, point it only at your own publication, keep it slow, and never give a third-party tool your Substack password. The official export remains the safe path.

The newsletterapi backups API for Substack writers turns your own exports into a dated, searchable archive with your images kept alongside. To get access, email hello@newsletterapi.io. Developers who want the bigger picture can see the posts API.

A five-minute monthly backup checklist

1. Settings → Exports → "Create new export".
2. Subscribers → ⋯ → Export → all columns.
3. Download both files when the email arrives and add the date to the file names.
4. Copy any new images from your drafts folder.
5. Put everything in two places, with the subscriber CSV encrypted.
6. Open one post and one CSV to confirm the files aren't empty.

If your publication also uses its RSS feed elsewhere, our Substack RSS feed guide explains what the feed does and does not carry. The feed is not a backup, because it only carries recent posts.