How to Migrate When Your Platform Shuts Down

I've been there. That moment when you open your email and see the subject line: "We're sunsetting our service." Your stomach drops. Years of writing, publishing, and building your audience—potentially gone.

I built Jottings because I watched this happen repeatedly. Friends and fellow creators would panic. Medium changed their payment model. Twitter alternative platforms folded. Newsletter services pivoted. And everyone scrambled to preserve what they'd built.

The good news? You're never as trapped as it feels. Here's how to migrate when your platform shuts down—and actually come out stronger.

Step 1: Export Everything. Today.

The moment you hear rumors of a shutdown—or even if you're just questioning whether to stay—export your data.

Don't wait for the platform to make it easy. They won't.

Most platforms offer data exports, but they're often buried in settings or come with restrictions. If your platform has an export feature:

Use it immediately. Download everything.
Check what formats are available. JSON, CSV, or XML are ideal because you can parse them programmatically.
Verify the export is complete. Count your posts, check the earliest and latest dates, spot-check content.
Save multiple copies. Cloud storage. Local drive. External hard drive. You're backing up years of work.

If no export exists, get creative:

Browser automation: Use Selenium or Puppeteer to scrape your own content (check the terms—usually okay for personal data).
API access: If the platform offers an API, write a script to pull everything.
Manual archival: If you only have dozens of posts, sad but doable. Download PDFs or screenshots.

I've seen creators lose thousands of posts because they waited "until the shutdown was official." Official announcements come 30-90 days before the service actually closes. That window disappears fast.

Step 2: Choose Your New Home Wisely

This is where you're deciding between "renting" and "owning."

Renting (another platform):

Medium, Substack, LinkedIn Articles
Fast to set up. Built-in audience discovery. Analytics included.
Downside: You're one algorithm change away from this happening again.

Owning (your own platform):

Self-hosted blog. Jottings. Ghost. Webflow.
You control everything. Your design, your data, your rules.
Downside: You manage the technical stuff (or pay someone to).

My honest take? If your audience is casual blog readers, a good platform is fine—just keep your data exportable. If you're building something meaningful, own it. That's the whole reason Jottings exists.

When evaluating a new home:

Data export: Can you get your content out? How?
URL structure: Can you preserve your existing links? (More on this next.)
Features: Does it support the format you actually use? Tags? Code blocks? Images?
Pricing: Is it sustainable for your situation, or are you making the same mistake again?

Step 3: Preserve Your URLs (SEO and Reader Sanity)

This is critical and often overlooked.

Your URLs are your brand's connective tissue. People link to your articles. Search engines rank them. If your old links break, you lose all that equity.

Before migrating:

Document your current URL structure. Write them down. All of them. Export a list.
Republish at identical URLs if possible. If your old posts lived at yoursite.com/how-to-migrate, they should live there on the new platform too.
Set up redirects if URL structures change. Old URL → New URL. This preserves SEO authority and doesn't anger people who saved your links.

If you own your domain (you should), the platform almost never controls your URLs. You do.

If you don't own your domain (you're on Medium, Substack, etc.), at minimum:

Redirect your old Medium profile to your new blog. Explain the move.
Post a final article on the old platform saying "I've moved, follow me here."
Update your bio links everywhere.

Step 4: Tell Your Audience

Your readers care. They want to follow you.

Post on your existing platform:

Announce the move clearly and early.
Explain why (you own your platform, you want better features, whatever).
Make it absurdly easy to find you. Link in the announcement, bio, pinned post.
Offer an email signup if you don't have one. Email is the only list you truly own.

Here's what I've seen work:

"After 5 years on [platform], I'm moving my blog to [new platform]. I'll keep posting here for 60 days, then everything moves. You can follow me at [link]. For updates, subscribe to my email list: [link]."

The 60-day window matters. It gives people time to migrate without feeling abandoned.

Why This Matters: Lessons for the Future

Every platform shutdown teaches the same lesson: the infrastructure you don't control can disappear overnight.

This isn't paranoia. It's history.

Tumblr lost its audience because of policy changes.
Twitter alternatives launched and died.
Substack's creator exodus happened because of terms changes.
Medium's compensation model shifted multiple times.

The platforms that last are built on trust and stability. The ones that don't are chasing growth or venture capital.

The real lesson: Your content deserves a home you control.

This doesn't mean you need expensive servers or deep technical knowledge. It means:

Your content is in a format you can export.
You own your domain.
You're not shocked when the service pivots.
Moving takes days, not months.

That's what Jottings is designed for. A blogging platform so simple that you could migrate everything tomorrow if you needed to. Where you own your posts, your design, and your audience list. Where platform changes never trap you.

Moving Forward

If you're in a shutdown situation right now:

Export today.
Choose a new home you can trust.
Redirect your old URLs.
Tell your audience clearly.
Give yourself permission to rebuild.

Your audience will follow. The internet is patient with creators who communicate. They won't leave you because you moved platforms—they'll leave if you disappear without explanation.

And next time? Pick a home where you're never forced to make this choice again.