How to Run a HubSpot Backup?

HubSpot can hold an enormous amount of data – the data that is essential for the daily operations of your business. While the risk of losing any of this data is close to none, it often pays off to run a regular HubSpot backup anyway. This way, you can access the data when HubSpot is down or reverse the changes if you happened to mess up. 

Use cases can vary, and so do the available approaches. We’ll explain what’s possible and how to back up specific data entities with no coding necessary.

Can I back up the entire HubSpot?

HubSpot doesn’t offer a utility that would export all of your data at once. Instead, you’ll need to manually export specific types of data – for example, contacts, workflows, or reports. The available formats include .csv and .xls/.xlsx (Excel). Workflows can be fetched as PNG files too.

Exporting manually can make sense if you’re about to make a major update to your database. For example, you’re about to change a workflow that automates thousands of interactions every day. Before you start, it’s a good idea to back up the Hubspot workflow in question and have it ready in case something goes wrong.

In reality, you’ll rarely ever need to back up the entire HubSpot. Even if you were to abandon HubSpot and move to the competition, you’ll still need to fetch the specific entities and bring them one by one to the new platform.

An alternative method relies on no-code tools that can automate the process. A popular choice among HubSpot users is Coupler.io. Coupler.io can automatically pull specific data entities, such as contacts, deals, products, tickets, and others. It imports them into a destination of your choice, with its HubSpot to Google Sheets, HubSpot to Excel, and HubSpot to BigQuery integrations.

This approach is better if Excel isn’t your go-to tool for analyzing the data. The advantage is also that the entire process is automated, and the data is refreshed according to your schedule – be it monthly, daily, or even every 15 minutes.

Hubspot data backup – available entities

With the native HubSpot methods, you can export plenty of your data. The following data entities are available:

• Contacts
  • Contacts (as .csv or .xls(x) files)
  • Companies (.csv, .xls(x))
  • Lists (.csv, .xls(x))

Learn how you can export list HubSpot.

• Marketing
  • Ads (.csv, .xls(x))
  • Emails (.csv, .xls(x))
  • Websites (.csv, .xls(x))
  • Files and templates (.csv, .xls(x))
  • Lead capture (.csv, .xls(x))
• Sales
  • Deals (.csv, .xls(x))
  • Products (.csv, .xls(x))
  • Quotes (.pdf only)
• Service
  • Tickets (.csv, .xls(x))
• Automation
  • Workflows (.csv, .png)
• Reports
  • Standard and custom reports (.csv, .xls(x))
  • Analytics (.csv, .xls(x))

How to back up data in HubSpot?

The standard method to back up HubSpot data is available under the Table Actions menu in the top-right section of each screen. Click on it and then press Export view.

Here, you’ll be able to choose whether you wish to export just the current view or all contacts/deals/others on record. At this stage, you also select the format and the language for column headers.

When finished, the export will be emailed to you. You can also access pending and finished exports via the Settings menu in the top-right corner (gear icon), and then Import & Export.

This method will work for most data entities but not for all. Follow this HubSpot article for the instructions on how to proceed with files, blog posts, workflows, and others.

Automated Hubspot CRM backup

As we talked about earlier, Coupler.io allows for setting up an automated Hubspot backup. The list of available entities is shorter but the most commonly requested entities are here. These are:

• Deals
• Contacts
• Companies
• Products
• Line Items
• Tickets
• Owners

You don’t need to choose the file format. Instead, the data will be pulled automatically into either destination: Google Sheets, Microsoft Excel, or Google BigQuery.

Coupler.io as HubSpot backup service

Here’s how to set up Coupler.io for running a HubSpot backup. You can also check out our video guide.

• Start by creating a Coupler.io account. You can use the 14-day free trial.
• Then, click the Add new importer button.
• Choose Hubspot as a source, click Continue and then Connect.

• In the pop-up window, select the HubSpot account you want to connect to and grant access to your account.
• Back on Coupler.io, select the data entity to import. You can select only one but if you’re interested in exporting multiple entities, it will be almost as simple as copying the importer later on.

• Optionally, select specific fields you wish to import as well as the starting data to fetch the data from
• In the Destination section, select where to import the data too. Then, connect your Google or Microsoft account.

• Choose which sheet (GSheets), worksheet (Excel), or table (BigQuery) the data should be imported to, and add the last customizations if you’d like
• Enable Automatic data refresh in the Schedule section. Choose the frequency, days of a week, timezone, and others.

• Click the Save and Run button to launch the importer. Here’s a sample backup of HubSpot deals into Google Sheets:

If you’d like to back up other available entities, find your importer, click the three-dots menu to the right, and then Copy. Change the data entity, perhaps also rename the importer, and launch it.

How to back up HubSpot contacts?

The backup of HubSpot data, such as contacts, is done in the standard way and is possible both as a manual export or via Coupler.io.

On HubSpot:

• Jump into your Contacts tab
• Apply any filter criteria you’d like. 
• Click on Table actions and then on Export view. 
• Choose the desired format and run the export.

How to export HubSpot contacts with Coupler.io:

• Click Add new importer
• Choose Hubspot and connect your account if you haven’t done so yet
• As a data entity, choose Contacts

• Proceed with the rest of the Source as well as a Destination setup same as we did earlier in the article.

How to back up the HubSpot blog?

The method for backing up the blog contents is a bit different from the standard method you use for pulling contacts or deals.

First, go to the blog section of your HubSpot CRM (Marketing -> Website -> Blog). Then, find More tools in the menu to the left.

Here you’ve got two options for backing up the HubSpot blog.

• Export blog posts returns the list of blog posts in .csv or .xls(x) formats
• Export all pages & blog posts (HTML) returns the zipped folder with the HTML/CSS versions of all your pages and blog posts

Choose what works best for you and the file will be emailed to you in no time.

How to back up Hubspot notes?

Pulling notes associated with contacts or calls is complicated. Whether you export with a native method or with Coupler.io, notes won’t be attached to the export file.

To fetch them, you’ll need to play with Engagements API and pull either all of the notes or only specific ones.

To automate the process and refresh the data at certain intervals, you can use Coupler.io’s JSON importer.

Choose JSON as a source for your importer. Then, insert the following JSON URL:

https://api.hubapi.com/engagements/v1/engagements/paged?hapikey=YOUR_API_KEY

You can find your API key via Settings -> Integrations -> API Key. Alternatively, use OAuth 2.0 authentication as described in the documentation.

As you’ll see, the imported data is quite raw. 

Configure the rest of the importer as we explained earlier in the Automated HubSpot CRM backup chapter and launch it.

To make any use out of this data, you’ll need to delve into Associations API to match the engagements with respective records in HubSpot CRM. 

Hubspot backup – recap

HubSpot enjoys a 99.99% uptime year-to-date, at the time of writing. It won’t happen often that the platform is down and you’ve got to hectically browse through spreadsheets in search of your contacts.

The real benefit of exporting data out of HubSpot is the ability to freely transform and analyze it. Advanced Excel formulas will give you a lot more information about your performance than a HubSpot report ever will. BigQuery is made for querying thousands or millions of records at a time. If you’ve got a large database, you’ll feel the difference right away.

Either tool can be easily connected to data visualization tools, such as Data Studio, Tableau, or Power BI. There, you can build self-updating dashboards and keep everyone in the loop, at all times.

Thanks for your time!