It is strongly recommended to periodically make a backup of your iWeb files. If you don’t do it you may lose hours and hours of work.

First of all you have to find the following file Domain.sites2 where iWeb stores its files. To find that file go to

Macintosh HD/Users/Your username/Library/Application Support/iWeb/Domain.sites2 s

If you can’t find it here search for it with spotlight. Note that the extension .sites (iWeb 1.0) or .sites2 (iWeb  2.0) may be hidden, also search for Domain only. To see if a Domain file is iWeb ’06 or iWeb ’08 select the file press Command(Apple)+i under "Name & Extension" you will find that it is .sites or .sites2.

Once you did a backup and want to restore, get the pages from the backup file back to iWeb, you just have to open the file by double clicking on it. Note that the location where the file is placed to doesn’t matter.

Now there are different ways to backup a Website created with iWeb. Here are some of them:

CHAPTER 1: Manually backup

CHAPTER 2: Scheduled auto-backup (strongly recommended)

- For non .Mac users and .Mac users (strongly recommended)

- For .Mac users only (and strongly recommended for them, suggested by Roddy)

CHAPTER 1:

1. • Copy it to an external HD or put it on a USB stick
   

1. • Burn it on a CD/DVD
   

1. • Put it on your iDisk
   

CHAPTER 2:

1. -For non .Mac users and .Mac users
   

2. 
   

3. • Leopard does it all by itself if Time Machine is enabled
   

1. • The following one is strongly recommended to those whom don’t have .Mac
   

A really good way to make a backup of the domain file I found it out ALL BY MYSELF (not exactly...) is Mozy... 2GB of free online storage for backup.

I made a backup of my domain file through Mozy (without zipping and so on)The point is I saved 500MB of storage and got additional 1500MB and best part yet to come: when I modify the Domain.sites2 in iWeb and make it backing up again it turns out that Mozy is so intelligent that it finds the pages I modified and uploads only those to Mozy, I don't have to backup the whole 500Megs every time, isn't that great? It's fantastic! Oh yeah and you can tell Mozy to automatically backup every day or once a week or manually backup.

It will take some time if you have a huge site like mine (500MB) to restore the file when needed. But as that shouldn’t often be the case I’d say that it doesn’t matter.

“One more thing" (like Jobs said once in a Keynozte pres. I think it was the one he first mentioned the iPhone => big surprise) I could also edit it by restoring it on another computer then put it back on Mozy. But I think it would need to upload the whole 500MB file so if you have a huge site like me that’s not a good way for editing one website from two computers.

Well... For people with .Mac that's not quite a revolution, but for those whom, like me, don't have it it is... I think... Last but not least it is a revolution because it’s free.

It is also backing up your Mail, Address Books and other stuff in one shot.

1. -For .Mac users only strongly recommended
   

Use Backup. Backup is a very easy to use freeware application by Apple for .Mac users. To download it go to your .Mac account. On the left side, under the calendar, click on Backup.

As Apple says Backup is a "Smart, powerful backup software - Now with one-step iLife backups". It can be used to schedule automatic backups to .Mac or an external harddrive either.

For more detailed information, please refer to this support article.

NOTE 1: Beware of replacing the newer Domain file with the older when backing up to an external HD, USB Stick or other things like that

NOTE 2: Note that you have to change permissions of the Domain file to be able to edit, save changes and publish a website from another user account and from another computer as well.

Select Domain file press Command(Apple)+i under Ownership & Permissions go to =>Details =>Others and select Read & Write

You have to do that in the original user account and computer in which the Domain file was created.

If your computer goes nuts and you didn’t change permissions you will find an error while publishing and saving.

NOTE 3: About copying/moving:

..From Finder's Help viewer: "If you drag the files or folders to a different disk, or if you drag them from a locked folder or disk, they will be copied, not moved."

Since Apple's document recommends: "Some sort of external storage where you can access your Domain file (a folder on your iDisk, your iPod or other external hard drive, etc)" ..."moving" your Domain file to external storage implies "copying".

We would like you to give us feedback on this page by commenting here. Tell us if it was helpful. If it wasn’t tell us why. If you think something is missing tell us what.

If you have a question please make sure it is relevant to the content of the page. Look through our FAQs and look where it fits best. If you can't find any FAQ on the topic post on the main page of our FAQs. Please do not post your question to the main page if there's a relevant FAQ. However we recommend you to post questions to the AppleDiscussionForum for iWeb.

Thank you.