# Clone an existing discourse forum, without access to the server itself?

**URL:** <https://meta.discourse.org/t/clone-an-existing-discourse-forum-without-access-to-the-server-itself/49110>\
**Category:** Product Support\
**Created:** [2016 年 8 月 23 日午後 10:38 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/clone-an-existing-discourse-forum-without-access-to-the-server-itself/49110 "2016-08-23T22:38:42Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 2

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**Author:** ![Mittineague](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/mittineague/32/114259_2.png) [@Mittineague](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Mittineague)\
**Post date:** [2016 年 8 月 23 日午後 10:55 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/clone-an-existing-discourse-forum-without-access-to-the-server-itself/49110/2 "2016-08-23T22:55:35Z")

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Hi spikerbond welcome to the forum

I don’t know how ethical it would be to do this.  
It seems to me it would be better to simply leave that forum, and start another with a fresh start.

That way there wouldn’t be any question about who “owns” the content.

Anyway, members can download a compressed CSV file of their posts with the following fields

- topic\_title
- category
- sub\_category
- is\_pm
- post
- like\_count
- reply\_count
- url
- created\_at

and I guess it could be possible to use that for a type of “import”

Discourse does allow for importing backups (an Admin-only feature), but I don’t think your particular use case has ever been considered.

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