How to Download Images from Squarespace Library Safely
To download images from Squarespace, open the Asset Library from your site dashboard, hover over the file, open the three-dot menu and click Download. For an image already on a live page, right-click it, open it in a new tab, and delete the ?format= part of the URL before saving to get the full-size original.
How to download images from Squarespace with the Asset Library
The Asset Library holds everything you've ever uploaded to the site, images and videos and files, whether or not a page is currently using them.
From your site dashboard, open the Asset Library, which sits under Website. On newer dashboards the quickest way there's typing "assets" in the search bar at the top.
Find your file by filtering on type or searching the filename, which is where naming your files sensibly before upload pays off a second time.
Hover over it, open the three-dot menu and click Download. You get the file exactly as you uploaded it, at full resolution.
Then check what actually landed, especially with videos and large images, because a download that got cut off looks fine as an icon and opens broken.
Pulling one off a live page
For a single image on a published page, right-click it and choose Open Image in New Tab. The URL will look something like images.squarespace-cdn.com/your-image.jpg?format=1500w.
That ?format=1500w on the end is the CDN handing you a resized copy. Delete everything from the question mark onwards, reload, and you're looking at the full-size original. Save it from there.
This works on any Squarespace site, including an old build you're reclaiming assets from. Which raises the obvious point: the trick gets you the file, it does not get you the rights. Only take images you own or are licensed to use.
Getting everything at once
There's no bulk media export, and that's the honest answer.
The content export under Settings, Import and Export gives you an XML file of your text, so posts and pages, with images still referenced as URLs rather than packaged as files.
That leaves three options. Download the files you actually need one at a time, which is fine when a rebrand needs twenty images. Work through the image URLs in the XML systematically, which is what I script on migration projects. Or avoid the problem entirely by keeping your original photography and graphics in your own storage from the start, so the website is never the only copy of anything.
Videos and other files
Videos you uploaded directly live in the Asset Library and download the same way. Videos embedded from YouTube or Vimeo were never on your Squarespace site at all, so get those from whichever account hosts them.
PDFs and other documents attached to links are in the Asset Library too, under the files filter. Those are the ones people forget during a migration more than anything else.
Frequently asked questions
Can I download my entire Squarespace site?
Not as one package. Text content exports as XML and media has to come down individually or through the URL trick. If you're migrating, budget time for the media, or have it handled as part of the move.
Am I getting the original image quality?
From the Asset Library, yes, exactly as uploaded. From a live page, yes, but only once you strip the ?format= parameter off the URL. Leave it on and you're saving a resized copy.
What if my old designer built the site and I can't get in?
Access follows account ownership, so ask to be added as a contributor or to have ownership transferred. A designer holding back assets you paid for is a contract conversation rather than a technical one.
Is it legal to download images from any website this way?
The technique works anywhere. The rights don't. Download what you own, licensed or created yourself, because someone else's photography stays theirs no matter what the URL bar lets you do.
Pulling your assets together because a rebuild or migration is coming? That's the moment to do it properly once, and my migration service covers the whole media transfer along with the redirects. Book a free call.
