How to Export a Squarespace Site to HTML

Squarespace does not export your site as HTML. The built-in export produces an XML file in WordPress's format, so to get HTML files you save the public pages yourself, by hand or with a crawler.

Here is what the built-in export contains, the three ways to get HTML, and what an HTML copy of a Squarespace site can and cannot do.

What the built-in export is

In the site's settings, Import and Export produces an XML file. Squarespace's Exporting your site page says it includes one blog page with its posts, text blocks, and image blocks, and leaves out album, cover, index, portfolio, calendar, and store pages, product, audio, and video blocks, drafts, style settings, and custom CSS. Images are links to Squarespace's servers, not files. It is built for importing into WordPress, and it is not a copy of any page as a visitor saw it.

Way 1: Save each page in the browser

Open the page, right-click, Save As, and choose "Webpage, Complete". The browser writes an HTML file and a folder of the images, scripts, and stylesheets it loaded. Open the HTML file later and the page appears, mostly. Images that load as you scroll can be missing, and links still point at the live site.

Good for a page or two. For a whole site it is slow, and you will not repeat it next month.

Way 2: A desktop crawler

HTTrack (free, Windows and Linux) and SiteSucker (Mac) follow every link on a site and write one HTML file per page, with the assets, into a folder. They work on Squarespace. Two things to know: they save the HTML the server sends, and Squarespace pages depend on scripts to lay themselves out, so what you see in the folder is not always what you saw in the browser. And they run only when you run them. We compared both in Dead Simple Backups vs HTTrack and Dead Simple Backups vs SiteSucker.

Way 3: A monthly copy with screenshots

Dead Simple Backups crawls the public site from its address, saves every public page as an HTML file, takes a full-page screenshot of each page in a real browser, and copies the images, fonts, and stylesheets into the zip with the HTML pointed at the local copies, so each page opens offline and looks like the original. A plain-text copy of every page is included for pasting elsewhere, along with a report of the template, fonts, and colors. It repeats on the 1st of every month and emails a private link.

The screenshot is the part the other two ways lack. When a page's layout came from scripts, the screenshot is the record of how it looked.

What an HTML copy is for

• A record. What the site said and looked like on a date.
• A rebuild. A developer moving the site to WordPress, Webflow, or a new Squarespace site works from the HTML, the images, and the screenshots.
• Reading offline. The pages open from a folder without Squarespace.

What it is not

• Not a restore. Squarespace has no import for HTML pages. Nothing puts the copy back with a click; you rebuild pages by pasting text and re-uploading images.
• Not a working site. Forms, checkout, search, and member logins needed Squarespace's servers. In a copy they are pictures of themselves.
• Not the private pages. A crawler sees what a logged-out visitor sees. Password-protected and members-only pages are not included, and neither are drafts or admin settings.

Try it on one page

Paste any public page into the free preview on our homepage. In about a minute you get that page as an HTML file with a full-page screenshot, no account needed. The monthly plan does the same for every public page.

Q: Can you export a Squarespace site to HTML?

Not with Squarespace's tools. The built-in export is XML for WordPress. You get HTML by saving the public pages in a browser, running a crawler, or using a service that copies the public site on a schedule.

Q: Does the Squarespace export include the design?

No. Style settings, custom CSS, and page layouts are not in the export, and images are links rather than files. An HTML copy of the public pages with screenshots is the record of the design.

Q: Can I host an exported Squarespace site somewhere else?

The pages open as static files, so they can sit on any host as an archive. Forms, checkout, search, and anything else that ran on Squarespace's servers will not work there.

Q: Will an HTML export include member-only pages?

No. Crawlers and our service read the site as a logged-out visitor, so pages behind a password or a member login are skipped.