Migrate from Squarespace

How to export your Squarespace content, convert it to Markdown, rehost images, and move to Project Broadsheet without losing your archive or SEO.

Squarespace exports content as a WordPress-compatible XML file. The migration process converts that XML to Markdown files, rehouses images, and maps old URLs to new ones through a redirect file.

Step 1. Export from Squarespace

1. In Squarespace, go to Settings → Advanced → Import / Export.
2. Click Export and choose WordPress format.
3. Squarespace downloads a .xml file containing all your posts, pages, and metadata.

Note: Squarespace does not include image files in the export. Images are hosted on Squarespace's CDN and referenced by URL in the XML. You will need to download them separately (Step 4).

Step 2. Parse the XML

The export is a WordPress Extended RSS (WXR) file. Use a WXR parser to extract posts:

npm install -g wordpress-export-to-markdown
wordpress-export-to-markdown --input=export.xml --output=posts/

This produces one Markdown file per post. Review the output; body content will be converted from HTML but may need manual cleanup for complex blocks (galleries, embedded forms, etc.).

Step 3. Map front matter fields

The parser generates basic front matter. Review and adjust each post:

# Generated (adjust as needed)
title: "My post title"
date: 2024-01-15
slug: my-post-title

# Add Project Broadsheet fields
section: news           # Assign to a section
author: your-slug       # Must match an entry in authors.js
tags: [tag1, tag2]
description: "A 120-character summary for SEO."

Remove Squarespace-specific fields like status, post_id, and wp:post_type, which have no meaning in Project Broadsheet.

Step 4. Rehost images

Squarespace images are served from sqspcdn.com or static.squarespace.com. These URLs will break after you leave Squarespace (especially if you cancel your plan).

Download all referenced images:

# Extract all image URLs from your Markdown files
grep -roh 'https://[^")\s]*\.\(jpg\|png\|webp\|gif\)' posts/ | sort | uniq > image-urls.txt

# Download each one
while read url; do
  curl -O --output-dir src/assets/img/migrated/ "$url"
done < image-urls.txt

Then update all references in the Markdown files to point to /assets/img/migrated/filename.jpg.

Step 5. Place files in sections

Move each post to its correct section folder:

cp posts/*.md src/content/news/

Adjust the target folder to match the section you want each post to live in. Blog posts typically go to news or opinion; you can sort by tags or category in the XML if you had multiple Squarespace blog pages.

Step 6. Preserve URLs with redirects

Squarespace blog post URLs are typically /blog/post-slug. Project Broadsheet uses /{section}/post-slug/. Add a _redirects file:

/blog/my-post /news/my-post/ 301
/blog/another-post /opinion/another-post/ 301

Squarespace pages (About, Contact) map to top-level URLs that Project Broadsheet also uses at the top level, so those may not need redirects at all.

To generate the redirect list from your export:

grep -o '<link>[^<]*</link>' export.xml | \
  sed 's|<link>||;s|</link>||' | \
  grep '/blog/' | \
  awk '{slug=$0; gsub(".*/blog/","",slug); gsub("/","",slug); print "/blog/" slug " /news/" slug "/ 301"}'

What about Squarespace pages?

Squarespace pages (About, FAQ, etc.) do not export as blog posts; they appear as <wp:post_type>page</wp:post_type> entries in the XML. Recreate these as Nunjucks pages in src/pages/ or as standalone Markdown files. For a simple About page, add src/about.md with the relevant front matter.

Would you rather hand this off?

The migration service handles the full process: XML parsing, image rehosting, redirect map, and a quality pass on a sample of the archive. Book a call.

What to do next

• Write your first article to understand Project Broadsheet's content model.
• Front matter reference for every supported field.
• Images in articles for image sizing and storage guidelines.