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Is there a way to export all the content you've created in Stack Overflow?

I'm looking at something similar to Facebook's Download Your Information feature.

It will be useful for personal backup, consolidation (in case you want to include them in a publication someday), or if you simply want to keep an offline copy.

If the site doesn't support it, any alternatives?

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5 Answers 5

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You could use the API or the Data Explorer, although in both cases you will be missing deleted content.

If you want to grab your deleted posts as well, shoot us an email via the "contact us" link at the bottom of any page.

We may add a better way to do this in the future, but to start this should be sufficient.

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  • 5
    I would very, very, very much like to have access to any content created by me that gets deleted, so please consider making this available. I am not alone, meta.stackexchange.com/questions/2645/…
    – hlovdal
    Commented Apr 12, 2013 at 20:15
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This is now a feature that is supported according to this answer:

There is a data access request form at https://stackoverflow.com/legal/gdpr/request

Do note, the request takes a while to be completed, and the data arrives in JSON format, and needs to be parsed.

Some more details for those planning to submit the GDPR data request:

  • The data arrives as a zipped file.

  • When unzipped, there are various folders, e.g. for chat, for app usage, etc. The relevant folder is "qa" which stands for Q&A i.e. the data of our Stack Exchange sites usage.

  • The "qa" folder contains sub folder for every Stack Exchange site you have account on, even if you never posted anything on that site, including meta sites.

  • Each site folder contains the following files, which are the actual data:

    File Explorer screenshot of the path: PC > OS(C:) > Users > User > Downloads > GDPR - blurred text > qa › stackoverflow.com; that has the contents: CommentVotes.json, Flags.json, PostCommentHistory.json, PostComments.json, PostHistory.json, PostNotices.json, PostReferralsinbound.json, PostReferralsOutbound.json, PostVotes.json, ReviewTasks.json, TagPreferences.json, TagsCreated.json, User.json, UserHistory.json, UserJobPreferences.json, UserStory.json, UserStoryHistory.json, UserStoryltems.json, UserVotes.json

    Contents of the download:

    • CommentVotes.json
    • Flags.json
    • PostCommentHistory.json
    • PostComments.json
    • PostHistory.json - for example, "PostHistory" contains the questions and answers as requested in the original question here.
    • PostNotices.json
    • PostReferralsinbound.json
    • PostReferralsOutbound.json
    • PostVotes.json
    • ReviewTasks.json
    • TagPreferences.json
    • TagsCreated.json
    • User.json
    • UserHistory.json
    • UserJobPreferences.json
    • UserStory.json
    • UserStoryHistory.json
    • UserStoryltems.json
    • UserVotes.json
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  • "Download a copy of the personal data associated with your account or email address. This data request will also include data to fulfill a portability request.", What is?
    – FriendlyFire
    Commented Jun 23, 2022 at 5:00
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    @NotStandingwithGoGotaHome I've just checked, and the downloaded data contains everything, including posts, votes, and anything else related to the user. Here is screenshot of my Stack Overflow contents, for example, "PostHistory" contains the questions and answers as requested in the original question here.
    – Shadow Wizard
    Commented Jun 23, 2022 at 10:03
  • This used to work, but it is no clear how to do it.
    – Asclepius
    Commented Nov 10, 2023 at 18:20
  • Very weird: I received a small JSON file which contains my mail address, Account Id and Account creation date. No answers, no votes, no questions, no nothing...
    – FloPinguin
    Commented Dec 18, 2023 at 17:25
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    @FloPinguin It comes in two parts: first you get a small file with just some personal data, then you get the big export with all your content.
    – wjandrea
    Commented Oct 7 at 16:13
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Interesting Question.
I went ahead and found that @jon.doe (jon.who?) answers for all 13 queries of the search query backup:

data.stackexchange.com/stackoverflow/queries?q=backup

Apparently, the differences are minor among the queries. And, right now, I have a 1.5MB .csv file with all my Answers (sounds profound, but no, we should measure jon.him to know the real weight).

Next step is building a WordPress plugin that converts it into blog posts, attribution et all, how not ;)
A starting point from Data Exploring: My answers (with body) ordered by CreationDate.

ohhh, my god, I think me just broke the internets trying to run that query on Mr. Skeet,
is SO ok?
I'll leave it for someone with more computing power than I

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  • mmm.. no, now that I'm parsing the dump, it's not my Answers' body that's coming up (and what I'm looking for), but the Questions'. Trying to find other queries.
    – brasofilo
    Commented Apr 13, 2013 at 4:31
  • About the WordPress plugin, yup, I'd like to see that someday too. Actually most answers in SO are more than blog-worthy, even book-worthy!
    – Ronixus
    Commented Apr 13, 2013 at 4:32
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    I'm starting to lose the count of the plugin-worthy answers I've dealt with :)
    – brasofilo
    Commented Apr 13, 2013 at 4:37
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    FWIW, I forked My answers to order by a.LastActivityDate which I think is more appropriate, along with some unrelated changes.
    – Asclepius
    Commented Mar 11, 2014 at 22:49
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As in current status of this site there is no mechanism for exporting your asked question and answered answer from user profile.

But you can use http://api.stackexchange.com/ for taking the user data.

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    Thanks, but is it an acknowledged feature request that might perhaps appear in the future?
    – Ronixus
    Commented Apr 12, 2013 at 16:01
  • @Ronixus May be...:)
    – Yogesh Suthar
    Commented Apr 12, 2013 at 16:02
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    @Ronixus It might. :) There are no plans for this at the moment that I know of, but it could certainly happen in the future.
    – Adam Lear StaffMod
    Commented Apr 12, 2013 at 16:02
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We can retrieve comments and answers as text via the RSS feed.

https://stackoverflow.com/feeds/user/USERID

https://stackoverflow.com/feeds/user/2494754

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