Tumblr import not working?

Getting started
1

I am trying to import a series of posts from an old Tumblr account. I’ve tried importing the primary ZIP file that Tumblr provides, as well as the “posts.zip” file that is nested inside it. In both cases, Micro.blog says it is processing the posts, but the content never appears. Has anyone else had luck with the Tumblr importer?

2

Tumblr import should work. You might get a clue of what’s going on in the logs. If not, contact help@micro.blog.

3

Thanks! Unfortunately there is no sign in the logs of my multiple import attempts. I will email support.

4

I’m looking into this. Thinking that maybe Tumblr changed something that we need to adapt for.

5

I also just ran into this today.

6

I’ve confirmed that Tumblr completely changed their export format recently, which broke Micro.blog’s import. I’m working on updating it.

1 Like
7

FWIW, the archive I was trying to import is three years old, and IIRC back then it imported fine into my test blog.

But I can totally re-export a new archive once you’ve got that going.

8

Quick update for anyone still following this: I just tried importing my Tumblr export file again, and this time it mostly works now! Posts contents and any included images get imported, and the correct historical publishing date is being set on each post.

There are, however, still some problems.

  • Links in post content are being stripped, with the URLs being lost entirely.
  • Post titles are surrounded by an H1 tag.
  • URL redirects are not being created; I had to manually create them one by one by creating new redirect Pages for each post.
  • Post URLs have an “h” prepended to the final portion of the path (e.g. instead of “post-title.html” you will see “hpost-title.html”.

It’s possible that any of these could be specific to my Tumblr blog and my export, but I don’t have any way to confirm this. Just passing along my experience…

9

Thank you. I’ll look into that, seems like those are things we could address in the importer.

For the redirects, it stores redirects created from an import separately from the normal redirects you can create under the Pages screen. We need to show these so it’s easier to troubleshoot whether they were created or not.

10

Apologies for resurrecting a year-old post, but I’m also running into some issues as I try to import my Tumblr archive. According to the logs, it successfully imports all my images, but none of them show up in my Uploads tab; additionally, it only imports the most recent post on my Tumblr before quitting. Any ideas for what I can do?