How to Backup Your Medium Publication to a JSON Bucket
A unique selling proposition for Medium is the ability for users to start a Publication and curate stories from other users into the Publication’s feed, thereby building a following based on others’ content and your aggregation prowess. Recently a large group of Medium Publications approached us at Cosmic JS and asked us if we thought our Content Management API would be a good bridge to port content from the Publication to a JSON Bucket. We built out the Medium Backup App, and it’s now available for installation and management in Cosmic JS.
In this blog I will show you how to install The Medium Backup App and then provide screenshots of what to expect when in the system. The Backup App gives Publication Administrators the ability to backup their Medium posts either by A) Manual Import (most recent 10 stories) or via a routine cron job (automatic into the future). The benefit of this app and export system is A) being able to backup all of your Medium Publication content B) the data is now laid out in Object (Post) format, with Metafields such as Authors, Published Date, Media and Tags passed through the API and succinctly laid out in the Cosmic JS Dashboard. Now all of your content is portable, scalable, downloadable, and available to be served via API to other apps that you can envision, like an iOS app or Android app.
(Plug: check out the Cosmic JS Cross-Platform Blog.)
I’ll be using Cosmic JS for this example app. Cosmic JS is an API-first CMS that makes managing and building websites and applications faster and more intuitive. By decoupling content from code, Cosmic JS empowers developer flexibility while ensuring content editors can plan and deploy content as it best suits them. We’ll be using Cosmic JS to install our example app, deploy and make content updates moving forward from the cloud-based Content Management Platform.
If you haven’t already, get started by Signing Up for Cosmic JS. Helpful resources are provided below to streamline your development operations.
1. Create a New Bucket
Install the Cosmic JS Medium Backup App
Once you’ve signed up and named your bucket, you’ll be prompted to start from scratch or “see some apps”. For this blog I simply clicked the right button to “see some apps” so that I could begin the installation process.
App Installation Options
Cosmic JS gives you the ability to filter between functions languages such as Web, iOS, Android, Blog, Contact Form and more.
3. Deploy to Web
Cosmic JS Bucket Dashboard
Hit “View App” in Your Top Right Hand Corner
Copy and Paste Medium Profile URL — Add /feed/ before the @firstnamelastname
Click Submit and Receive Success Banner for Last 10 Posts Imported
Articles in Cosmic JS Dashboard
Cosmic JS is an API-first cloud-based content management platform that makes it easy to manage applications and content. If you have questions about the Cosmic JS API, please reach out to the founders on Twitter or Slack.
Carson Gibbons is the Co-Founder & CMO of Cosmic JS, an API-first Cloud-based Content Management Platform that decouples content from code, allowing devs to build slick apps and websites in any programming language they want.
