Backup your Basecamp files with Parachute
Posted in: Technology on Apr 14
I know I rarely blog here anymore but I thought this was worth mentioning: My company just released a new product called Parachute that will backup the files from your Basecamp account.
I explain Parachute in detail on our company blog (which, by the way, is where I do most of my writing these days):
As long-time Basecamp users we realized there was no easy way to get the files we’ve uploaded. The Basecamp API and export utilities don’t provide them, so the only way to backup your files is to click on each link and save the files manually or use a Firefox download extension. We have several years worth of projects stored in Basecamp; it would take weeks to do this manually.
Backup your Basecamp files
Here’s where Parachute comes in. Parachute backs up all the files for your Basecamp projects to your hard drive. You can back up just one project in a just a couple of minutes or you can backup everything.
Parachute archived all the files from our Basecamp account in a couple of hours. That’s nearly three gigabytes of data and 4,000 files from more than 50 projects.
Create a complete HTML export
Basecamp offers a really handy HTML export feature that gives you all your data as website you can browse locally. Alas, this export doesn’t include any links to your files.
Parachute will backup your files and add them back into Basecamp’s HTML export. Links to files in messages and to-do lists will work exactly as they did in the original project.
You now have a complete HTML archive of a project you can give to a client or save for future reference.
And here's the screencast demo I made for the product:
Parachute is available for download right away, for just $69.
EAVB_XZEEROMTLE
By day Gene Smith is a principal with nForm, one of Canada's leading user experience consulting firms. By night he writes about information architecture, interaction design, community, the web and other such topics. 
