To find out exactly how to do this, I tapped frequent contributor Zack Shapiro to help out, since he has a Tumblr blog of his own. Here's what he shared...
A lot has been said about Tumblr's recent downtime. Regardless of your feelings about the blogging site being temporarily out of service, you should be safe back up your data. Data backup is something that gets harped on a lot but few people take it seriously until they're a victim.
Here are the steps I've used to backup my own Tumblr blog.
First things first, you'll need to go to the Tumblr blog and grab a copy of the Tumblr Backup utility. Do so by clicking this: http://staff.tumblr.com/post/286303145/tumblr-backup-mac-beta:
Once you've downloaded it, enter your password and select the blog you want to backup:
Click on "Start Backup" and it moves fairly quickly:
In a few minutes all of your Tumblelog's data should be safely stored on your harddrive, ready to fight another day (or more downtime)!
It's also worth noting in closing that other options exist for Linux users (tumblr-backup) and Internet users as a whole (tumblr_backup.php).
Zack is a senior at the University of Colorado at Boulder. He runs an iPhone development company,
59thirty, and is currently working on a stealthy startup. You can find him blogging on
The Startup Student or on Twitter as
@ZackShapiro.
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After the recent 
I downloaded the tumblr backup on my mac, put my username and password, the application shows me my tumblr, but when i click on "Start Backup", it says right away that it's complete but nothing is actually backed up... :/ Do you have any ideas ??