Posterous Closing Down Migrate to Bluehost Now

If you are using Posterous you surely must realize that Posterous is shutting down on April 30th 2013 which is only just a few short weeks away.  The good news is you don’t have to lose your Posterous blog, Bluehost created a WordPress plugin that will allow you to export your Posterous blog and import it into your Bluehost WordPress blog.

Step 1: Backup Posterous

Log into Posterous

Click Backup

Click Request Backup

Enter the Captcha and make sure email you want backup to be sent to is valid.

After a few minutes your backup should be completed, and you can log back into your Posterous account and download your backup.

 

Step 2: Sign up for Bluehost

Hurry up and sign up for a Bluehost Web Hosting account, where you can get as low as $3.95 per month rates if you pre-pay several years in advance which is totally worth it.

 

After choosing a domain name or transferring one, you will want to click the WordPress 1 click installer.

Then click on WordPress on the SimpleScripts page.

Click Install

Enter your Install Path information

Normally you shouldn’t need the plugins/themes offered, just uncheck them unless you know you have a reason to install them.

In Step 2, click on “Click Here to Display” and set the custom options.

• Set your admin username (don’t use admin)
• set your password (make sure it is secure, 8-10 characters includes 1 special, 1 alphanumeric and 1 number at least)
• Enter your email (should be populated but if you have another email set it)

Click Complete

In just a few short minutes your WordPress installation will be complete and you can sign into it by going to “yoursite.com/wp-admin” then entering the admin and password credentials you just set.

Now you will need to import your Posterous posts into your WordPress blog.

Importing Posterous Posts into WordPress

 

First download the BlueHost Posterous Importer plugin from this link

Then in your WordPress –> Plugins –> Add New

Click on Upload

Select Choose File

Click on the bh-posterous-importer.zip plugin file you downloaded.

Click Install Now

Then Click Activate Plugin

Now in the WordPress Dashboard, click on the Tools –> Import menu item.

Click on Posterous as the source file type you are importing.

Select which user to associate all the Posterous posts to, this would be the only user you just created when you setup your WordPress blog in most cases.

Then choose the Posterous file you received when you did your Posterous backup and click Start Import.

Depending on how large your Posterous export was this could take a few moments.

Advanced Posterous File Import

If your Posterous backup file is too large you will have to do the advanced method of uploading your Posterous file, you can follow these steps instead.

1. Goto Tools-> Import and select Posterous from the list.
2. Click “Goto Advanced Form”
3. Upload your UNZIPPED export from Posterous to the posterous folder in the current month (ex: wp-content/2013/04/posterous) using your FTP program.
4. Select a user to assign the posts to
5. Click Start Import.

Note: the “Start Import” button will be disabled unless the folder is detected.

Now you have finished and all of your Posterous blog posts should be setup and running in your new WordPress blog.