# Before you cancel Squarespace: what to save first

Published 2026-11-08. Facts checked 2026-11-08.

Save your images, videos, form entries and contacts before you cancel. Squarespace's export covers only part of a site and has no bulk image download. Once the billing cycle ends, visitors see a "Website expired" message instead of your pages.

## If you cancel, will you lose everything?

Not on the day you cancel. [Squarespace keeps your data](https://support.squarespace.com/hc/en-us/articles/205810508-Cancel-your-website-subscription) so you can reactivate later, and you can still log in to manage billing, domains, contacts and past orders.

But Squarespace doesn't say how long it keeps a cancelled site, and [its export guide warns](https://support.squarespace.com/hc/en-us/articles/206566687-Exporting-your-site) that content may already be gone from a site that has been expired for a while. If you are on an older legacy plan, you also can't come back to it. Reactivating means a current plan at the current price.

So treat cancelling as the end of your access, and save everything first.

## What the export includes

The export is a WordPress-format file. It was built to move your content into WordPress, not to back up your site.

| Part of your site | In the export? |
| --- | --- |
| Layout pages | Yes |
| Text and image blocks | Yes |
| One blog, with its posts | Yes |
| Gallery pages | Version 7.0 only |
| Any other blog | No |
| Album, index, portfolio and store pages | No |
| Video, audio and product blocks | No |
| Page headers, footers and sidebars | No |
| Style settings and custom CSS | No |

Images need particular care. An image block in the export can be only a link back to Squarespace, and Squarespace says those links [stop working after you cancel](https://support.squarespace.com/hc/en-us/articles/206566687-Exporting-your-site) if you import them into a self-hosted WordPress site. Save your own copies.

## The order to work through

<figure class="diagram">
<figcaption class="lab">Leaving Squarespace, in order</figcaption>
<ol class="flow">
<li><span class="flow-n">1</span> Download your images and videos</li>
<li><span class="flow-n">2</span> Export your form entries</li>
<li><span class="flow-n">3</span> Export contacts and orders</li>
<li><span class="flow-n">4</span> Run the content export</li>
<li><span class="flow-n">5</span> Record your design and page addresses</li>
<li><span class="flow-n">6</span> Decide on domain, email and scheduling</li>
<li class="flow-check"><p><span class="flow-n">7</span> <strong>Is the new site live and tested?</strong></p><p class="flow-branch"><strong>No:</strong> keep paying until it is. An extra month costs less than a gap.</p><span class="flow-on lab">Yes</span></li>
<li class="flow-end"><span class="flow-n">8</span> Cancel. Everything you need is saved.</li>
</ol>
</figure>

1. **Images and videos.** There's no bulk download, so [these come off one at a time](https://support.squarespace.com/hc/en-us/articles/205814028-Importing-and-exporting-content) from the Asset library. Start here, because it takes longest. Originals on your own computer are better still, if you have them.
2. **Form entries.** Open each form block, go to its Content tab and click Export Submissions to [download a CSV](https://support.squarespace.com/hc/en-us/articles/206566737-Form-blocks). Do this soon: a form with no required email field keeps each entry for only 30 days. Uploaded files aren't in the CSV, so download those from the links in it.
3. **Contacts and orders.** In the [Contacts panel](https://support.squarespace.com/hc/en-us/articles/360046485652-The-Profiles-panel), use the menu at the top right to export everyone. Notes and saved addresses aren't included. If you sell, [export your orders](https://support.squarespace.com/hc/en-us/articles/206540677-Exporting-orders) too, and refund any gift cards before you cancel, because balances can't be refunded afterwards.
4. **The content export.** Your site must be published and set to Public, and trial sites can't export. Open the Import & export panel, click Export, then the WordPress icon. If you have several blogs, you choose one.
5. **Your design and page addresses.** No export carries your design. Take screenshots of each page at phone and desktop widths. Save a list of every page address too, because keeping those addresses is what protects your Google rankings. Your sitemap, at `/sitemap.xml` on your domain, lists them.
6. **Domain, email and scheduling.** Cancelling your site doesn't cancel any of these, and they keep billing. If you keep your domain and it stays active, [your Google Workspace email keeps running](https://support.squarespace.com/hc/en-us/articles/206542007-Cancel-your-Google-Workspace-subscription). If that subscription lapses, the email is suspended, and after 40 days it's disconnected from your site.

## How to cancel

Open the Billing panel, select the plan under Subscriptions and click Cancel subscription, then follow the prompts. The site stays up until the end of the billing cycle. It then goes private, search engines stop indexing it, and pages can take several weeks to drop out of results.

On an annual plan inside the refund window, you can choose between keeping access and taking a refund immediately. Taking the refund ends the site straight away, so finish saving first.

## The part an export can't do

Squarespace's export gives you your words and some links to your pictures. It doesn't give you the site your customers see.

We rebuild your site from its public pages as a static site, with the same design, the same pages and the same URLs, and you keep every file. The audit below shows what would move and what needs a closer look before you cancel anything.

## Free audit

Get a report on your site's speed, security and running cost, plus a fixed price to rebuild it as a static site, at https://unhitch.tech/#audit.