DRAG AND DROP!
You should now be able to do the conversion easily by yourself, thanks to the Drag and Drop LJ into MT script published at ScriptyGoddess! Please note that I have no information about this script and I have not even tried it myself…but before contacting me to do your conversion, please try this first. Then, if you really need to, you can ask me for help. It’s faster when you do it yourself, too - I promise!

So you’d like to import all your LiveJournal entries into Movable Type. It’s not as hard as it looks, but there are a few things you need first.

  • Whether you’re doing this on your own machine or someone else’s, you need to be able to work with Perl. In most cases, you will need shell access to your server to mess with it.
  • dburr’s lj2mt script. This is the program that does the dirty work. (Just in case his goes down, I’ve saved a mirror of the script.) Make sure you remove “.txt” from the end before attempting to work with it!
  • You will need the XML::Node and Date::Parse modules installed; if they’re not present you need the ability to install modules (both permissions and know-how).
  • Note: The XML::Node module requires both XML::Parser and XML::Parser::Expat, both of which are available from CPAN.

Once you’ve got everything in place, you’re ready to export your LiveJournal entries. This should be done in Internet Explorer if at all possible, due to apparent problems with Netscape’s parsing of line breaks.

  • Log in and go to the Export Journal page.
  • Export what: Journal Entries. Currently this is the only option.
  • Select month: Fill it in yourself. You do have to do this month by month for every month you’ve been keeping a LiveJournal.
  • Format: XML. Won’t work any other way.
  • Header: Checked. I don’t think this affects anything if you’re exporting to XML, but I’ve always left it checked and it doesn’t hurt anything.
  • Encoding: Unicode (UTF-8). It will break if you set it to anything else. This may result in foreign or accented characters being transformed into something else, but it’s easy enough to correct using MT’s search-and-replace function.
  • Fields: Event Time, Subject, Event. You can add others if you like, but these are the only ones that will be imported into MT. If you download the script from my server (see above), you can also export the mood and music information, which is appended to the entry in MT.
  • Proceed, and then go to File > Save As… to keep the results. You must save it with a “.xml” extension; saving it as text and then just changing the extension to “.xml” won’t work. Call the file whatever you like, “2002-02.xml” or “july01.xml” or something useful like that.

The next step is do actually do the conversion.

  • Put the lj2mt.pl script and all of your XML files into the same directory.
  • To run the script, type lj2mt.pl july01.xml mt-name > july01.mt at the command line - “mt-name” should be replaced by your login name for Movable Type.
  • You will see it process each entry; on a fast computer they will fly by too quickly to read but you’ll be able to tell it’s working. If it doesn’t process each entry in this way, something is wrong.
  • Repeat the command for each month you’ve exported from LiveJournal, changing it to lj2mt.pl aug01.xml mt-name > aug01.mt as appropriate.

You’ll now have a collection of “.mt” files. The Movable Type manual contains instructions on importing entries, but I’ll mention a few things here, along with a few final notes.

  • It’s probably a good idea to do a test with just one of your “.mt” files first. Once those entries have been imported successfully, delete that file from the import directory, and put all the rest in there. It’s fine to do a whole bunch all at once.
  • After everything is finished and you’re happy, go ahead and delete the “.xml” and “.mt” files, you won’t need them anymore.
  • Note that MT has no support for private or friends-only entries. If you import ‘em, we’ll see ‘em. The only way around this is to set those entries to “Draft” after you’ve imported them.
  • There is currently no way to export LiveJournal memories. You will have to establish MT categories for each Memories category, and set it all manually.

Rebuild, and you’re all set!

REALLY CONFUSED? Don’t worry, I can do (some of) this for you. It took me a really long time to get all this working, and it takes me just a few minutes to import even a few years of entries. Send a zipped package of your XML files to lj2mt@amanita.net, and leave a comment here or e-mail me to let me know you’ve sent the file. I’ll send back a zipped package of “.mt” files for you to import.

53 Responses for "Importing LiveJournal Entries to Movable Type"

  1. birdhouse.org September 12th, 2002 at 2:00 am 1

    Importing LiveJournal Entries to Movable Type

    Many thanks to Amanita.net for the excellent LiveJournal to MT import/export script. I honestly didn’t think I’d be able to
  2. Reverend Jim January 8th, 2003 at 4:11 pm 2

    This is a great tutorial. Thanks for sharing.

    There is actually an easier way (and much more automated). Since both LiveJournal and MovableType (if you turn it on) have XML-RPC interfaces, it is easy to move items from one place to the other. Maybe I’ll work out a little script to do the dirty work tonight. I’ll let you know if I do.
  3. Niherlas February 5th, 2003 at 7:19 pm 3

    Again, very good tutorial. I managed to get the script up and running on my own machine (MacOS X) without much trouble, and got everything converted. One of the things I’m still doing, however, is hunting down lj user tags, but that’s not very hard. :)

  4. Cassie February 8th, 2003 at 8:31 am 4

    Hello,

    I’m currently trying to export LJ-entries and import them to my website. The problem is… erm. I don’t know how. I mean, I don’t think I have access to the shells on the server. How would I be able to gain this kind of access? Thanks!

    Cassie
  5. scriptygoddess.com February 9th, 2003 at 1:42 pm 5

    A Variety of MT Things

    From my travels for today: :: Want to convert from LiveJournal to MT? Meredith has information on how to do
  6. The Goddess Speaks . . . Transitions February 9th, 2003 at 6:59 pm 6

    Going From Livejournal to Moveable Type?

    Here’s a tutorial for importing your Livejournal entries into Moveable Type. I know a couple of LJ users who have fled to MT and a few more who want to, so pass the information around.
  7. Quae Nocent Docent February 9th, 2003 at 7:11 pm 7

    Attention LiveJournal Users

    Come to MovableType today. Please.
  8. Axiomatic Breakfast February 10th, 2003 at 12:04 pm 8

    Switching from LiveJournal to Movable Type

    amanita.net has a good article describing how to Import LiveJournal Entries to Movable Type
  9. A Trip Inside Zaldor's World February 12th, 2003 at 2:07 pm 9

    Finally!!!

    Someone has written a tutorial to import LiveJournal entries into MT!!!!! I haven’t tried it yet, I just found it
  10. Jackrabbit Slim's February 14th, 2003 at 8:13 pm 10

    LiveJournal import utility

    Yay! I found instructions on how to import my whole LiveJournal thing into Movable Type. This is the site: http://journal.amanita.net/archives/000840.php
  11. Zaldor February 16th, 2003 at 11:31 pm 11

    Well, I gave it a shot - maybe because I was trying to run the perl script on my PC instead of the server? I emailed you my exports maybe you’ll have better luck - Thanks!
  12. Flashbulb Moments May 20th, 2003 at 12:22 am 12

    The Semantics of Stalking

    I am still in the process of converting my LiveJournal into Moveable Type format. That is to say, the files have been converted, but I have not yet imported them. Really deeply personal stuff, some of it, and I’m leery…
  13. Freedom, Technology, Apathy and Boredom May 24th, 2003 at 4:15 am 13

    moving from LJ to MT

    First off, I decided that I wanted to change. I wanted to do some things that were simply too hard with LiveJournal, like categorize and have the potential to interact with other blogs, etc. But I still wanted to have…
  14. Freedom, Technology, Apathy and Boredom May 24th, 2003 at 1:32 pm 14

    moving from LJ to MT

    First off, I decided that I wanted to change. I wanted to do some things that were simply too hard with LiveJournal, like categorize and have the potential to interact with other blogs, etc. But I still wanted to have…
  15. Freedom, Technology, Apathy and Boredom May 24th, 2003 at 3:25 pm 15

    moving from LJ to MT

    First off, I decided that I wanted to change. I wanted to do some things that were simply too hard with LiveJournal, like categorize and have the potential to interact with other blogs, etc. But I still wanted to have…
  16. Freedom, Technology, Apathy and Boredom May 29th, 2003 at 12:17 am 16

    moving from LJ to MT

    First off, I decided that I wanted to change. I wanted to do some things that were simply too hard with LiveJournal, like categorize and have the potential to interact with other blogs, etc. But I still wanted to have…
  17. Freedom, Technology, Apathy and Boredom May 31st, 2003 at 6:04 pm 17

    moving from LJ to MT

    First off, I decided that I wanted to change. I wanted to do some things that were simply too hard with LiveJournal, like categorize and have the potential to interact with other blogs, etc. But I still wanted to have…
  18. Matt July 2nd, 2003 at 11:15 am 18

    Fantastic tutorial! I’m about to make the LJ/MT switch myself, so this was really helpful.

    I found an easy way to automate the whole process (with a little extra unix know-how). Drop all of those .xml files into a directory that will contain only themselves and the ‘lj2mt.pl’ script. At the command line do this:

    $> foreach i (*.xml)

    This will then start the foreach loop. At the ‘foreach?’ prompts type this:

    foreach? set a=`echo “$i”| sed -e ’s/\(.*\).xml/\1.mt/’`
    foreach? ./lj2mt.pl $i your-blog-user-name > $a
    foreach? end

    This will cause each of the .xml files to be automatically migrated to the .mt files (presuming there are no errors. :)
    Oh, and for Cassie that posted earlier, try downloading Perl for Windows from ActiveState. You’ll still have to install the CPAN modules, as well as change the path to perl at the top of the ‘lj2mt.pl’ script, but it should still work.
  19. Matt July 2nd, 2003 at 8:12 pm 19

    I’m trying to run this with ActivePerl 5.6.1…which seems to have 2.7 of XML-Parser…which gives me this error:

    syntax error at line 1, column 0, byte 0 at C:/Perl/site/lib/XML/Parser.pm line 168

    I attempt to upgrade XML-Parser through PPM, which it won’t do, and if I update the modules, I get all sorts of other errors inside ActivePerl.

    Ideas?

    m.
  20. matt at lightwind July 24th, 2003 at 10:27 am 20

    lost inside these thoughts

    Interesting day today.. I moved myself into CC208, abandoing my post at the hallway corner office. It’s weird being back in the shared office. I sure did like having the ability to just close my door and forget about people…
  21. X-POLLEN July 29th, 2003 at 9:16 pm 21

    Memory transplants

    Well, I bit the bullet, installed some perl nodes and migrated over the entries in my LiveJournal, bodega, from January through October of 2002 (and a single entry from June of this year) to this X-POLLEN weblog. I’ve been doing a bunch of migrations m…
  22. Radio Free Blogistan July 30th, 2003 at 12:03 am 22

    Migrating from LiveJournal to Movable Type

    Having migrated a weblog (this one) from Radio to Movable Type and another from Blogger Pro to Movable Type, my next migration project has been to get my old bodega weblog migrated over from LiveJournal to Movable Type, and imported into my X-POLLEN bl…
  23. X-POLLEN July 30th, 2003 at 7:38 pm 23

    Memory transplants

    Well, I bit the bullet, installed some perl modules and migrated over the entries in my LiveJournal, bodega, from January through October of 2002 (and a single entry from June of this year) to this X-POLLEN weblog. I’ve been doing a bunch of migrations…
  24. www.kaustubhhere.com August 20th, 2003 at 6:03 am 24

    LJ Imported!

    Thanks to Meredith, I imported all my entries on LiveJournal here. The entry about what I have been upto in the last few months will have to wait another day I guess. Right now, I am too busy trying to…
  25. Tushar August 25th, 2003 at 12:39 pm 25

    Great tutorial! Worked flawlessly. I wrote a little perl around LJ2MT to write .mt files all at once. This is before I scrolled down a little further and saw the unix conmmand-line equivalent. Doh!

    Thanks a heap.
  26. Dan September 16th, 2003 at 1:29 am 26

    This is THE source for people who want to convert their Livejournal entries to MT. I wouldn’t suggest anything else (at least for now ;)). Thanks for your help!
  27. Artificial Ennui September 23rd, 2003 at 12:01 pm 27

    moving from LJ to MT

    First off, I decided that I wanted to change. I wanted to do some things that were simply too hard with LiveJournal, like categorize and have the potential to interact with other blogs, etc. But I still wanted to have…
  28. Vix October 5th, 2003 at 6:36 pm 28

    I been looking for a why to convert my LJ special posts to MT, Your a angel!

    However I’m so confused, I’ll send you a zip of 2002-04.zip in a email Could you please convert.

    Muchly appreciated. BTW I’m blogrolling you and making a Blog note of this.. Lets know when you get the software Created if ya do.. I’d LOVE to support ya!
  29. Vix October 5th, 2003 at 6:37 pm 29

    I’m so lost.. Sending you a zip.

    muchly appreciated.
  30. Digital Vixen October 5th, 2003 at 6:51 pm 30

    Importing Live Journal Entries to Moveabletype

    Amanita.net has a brilliant tutorial to converting Live Journal Posts to Moveabletype…
  31. Mathie of The Endless October 10th, 2003 at 10:43 am 31

    Moving home

    I appear to have moved from my Livejournal to here, along with moving my email address and various IM ids. I’m sure that, if people want to find me, eventually they will. Thanks to this helpful entry I’ve imported my…
  32. Mathie of The Endless October 10th, 2003 at 10:45 am 32

    Moving home

    I appear to have moved from my Livejournal to here, along with moving my email address and various IM ids. I’m sure that, if people want to find me, eventually they will. Thanks to this helpful entry I’ve imported my…
  33. opera and cookies October 16th, 2003 at 3:25 pm 33

    Bucket by Bucket

    amanita.net - Importing LiveJournal Entries to Movable Type…
  34. Carthik November 6th, 2003 at 6:11 pm 34

    Thank you for this interesting article. I went one step further, and, after importing entries, went on to use another script which lets me post my latest MT entry in my Livejournal automatically.
    Please see My Article on LJ to MT migration for details.

    If you need help helping people create the .mt files, let me know, I use a linux laptop so I can do it on my system quite easily.
  35. Carthik.Net December 5th, 2003 at 6:49 pm 35

    LiveJournal to MovableType Migration HowTo

    This article seeks to explain the painful process of migrating from LiveJournal to MovableType. The first thing I needed to do for this was to import all the entries from my LiveJournal (LJ) to my MovableType (MT) blog. Amanita.net has…
  36. Carthik.Net December 5th, 2003 at 6:52 pm 36

    LiveJournal to MovableType Migration HowTo

    This article seeks to explain the painful process of migrating from LiveJournal to MovableType. The first thing I needed to do for this was to import all the entries from my LiveJournal (LJ) to my MovableType (MT) blog. Amanita.net has…
  37. la rawr de nuestra señora December 12th, 2003 at 3:30 am 37

    Ow.

    The saddest thing ever
  38. la rawr de nuestra señora December 12th, 2003 at 3:32 am 38

    Ow.

    The saddest thing ever
  39. la rawr de nuestra señora December 12th, 2003 at 5:02 am 39

    Ow.

    The saddest thing ever
  40. Artificial Ennui December 16th, 2003 at 11:52 am 40

    moving from LJ to MT

    First off, I decided that I wanted to change. I wanted to do some things that were simply too hard with LiveJournal, like categorize and have the potential to interact with other blogs, etc. But I still wanted to have…
  41. Anonymous January 16th, 2004 at 9:14 pm 41

    Great tutorial, but what am I doing wrong?

    The conversion seems to work flawlessly, but when I go to MT and try to import, it tells me:

    “Invalid date format ‘09/03/2003′; must be ‘MM/DD/YYYY HH:MM:SS AM|PM’ (AM|PM is optional)”

    Any help? Thanks.
  42. Shane's blog, journal, whateveritis, Part 2 February 9th, 2004 at 2:14 am 42

    LJ to MT…

    amanita.net - Importing LiveJournal Entries to Movable Type It would appear that if I wanted to I could import all of my LJ stuff into this blog… I’m not sure that I want too, though. I like LJ for the…
  43. Anonymous March 29th, 2004 at 9:47 am 43

    Hey, I ran into the invalid date format too.. just do an edit on the .mt file and replace all instances of /2003 with /2003 12:00:00 , all your imported entries will come in with a time of 12 noon, but since LJ isn’t exporting the times anyway it’s no big deal.
  44. Genevieve April 12th, 2004 at 8:02 am 44

    I’m new to this site, just browsing around
  45. jobby April 19th, 2004 at 10:20 pm 45

    Got a fix for the date bug - if you replace 

    #my $mtDate = strftime("%m/%d/%Y %r", localtime($time));

    with 

    my $mtDate = strftime("%m/%d/%Y %H:%M:%S %p", localtime($time));

    , MT imports it with no problems. Great script, by the way.
  46. Trommetter Tech May 13th, 2004 at 8:47 am 46

    Tech Links

    MovableType to Live Journal Crosspost Plugin Does this really work?Blogger Knowledge What’s new at blogger.comImporting LiveJournal Entries to Movable…
  47. prettydaisies July 11th, 2004 at 4:46 am 47

    fabulous tutorial. i got through everything but the import without an issue. MT tells me that the data from my import file, which is all of 6 posts for one month, has imported OK, but when i look at my entries list, nothing’s there. i checked the archives directory, but there’s nothing there, either.

    ideas? thanx!
  48. greendaisy July 13th, 2004 at 11:37 am 48

    There is a better option available for those who use Windows and can’t be bothered with installing Perl,etc:

    http://www.thejackol.com/projects/ljbackuptk
  49. Dallas July 26th, 2004 at 3:57 pm 49

    Hey, thanks for sharing this code. It worked like a charm for me, and now I just need to work on filtering through my entries before marking them to public.

    One comment is that you said to type “lj2mt.pl aug01.xml mt-name > aug01.mt” but I had to type “perl lj2mt.pl aug01.xml mt-name > aug01.mt” in order to get it to work. I’m not sure if this was just my problem, or a minor detail left out, but it might be useful to someone who is getting an error.
  50. cygnoir August 11th, 2004 at 9:50 am 50

    Oops. I forgot a month when I sent you the files a while back. I just sent it … sorry!
  51. snowchyld.org November 28th, 2004 at 6:18 pm 51

    Satoshi Igarashi is alive!

    ok so like.. many many years ago.. Satoshi Igarashi did a site at http://www.din.or.jp/~toy/ (linked to archive.org as the original site is long dead which if you recall was where the original of this was: the imac ‘hello again’ girl…
  52. Gloria December 6th, 2004 at 9:29 pm 52

    Hey,
    This is a very nice turorial, especially for dorks like me!! I tried very hard to get it to work, but I just can’t install XML::node…can you please help me convert them? I just emailed you my XML files as a zip. Thank you so much!!! :)

  53. cygnoir's quill January 24th, 2005 at 9:47 pm 53

    sharing the meredith love

    No, this is not a pr0n entry, so move along! Meredith of Amanita.net doesn’t remember how she met me, but I remember exactly how I met her: I begged her for help in converting my LiveJournal archives to Movable Type…