Back up the site including metadata

Case1

So, how is one supposed to do a full backup of their site, one that also includes metadata on images that have been replaced in the past? Since SmugMug seems to - inexplicably and mind-bogglingly - lack the option to make a full backup of everything (this is 2024, right?), I've now tried several third-party tools, including paid ones unfortunately, only to find out that none of them seem to be able to do this. At best I can get the photos with their "original" files, except they are not the originals, the metadata have been altered in those images that have previously been replaced.

Somehow the metadata are still there if I view the image info directly on SmugMug, it's there if you use the "gallery by gallery" download option, but they're not available via the API for the third-party services. So since I've now spent some time to make the metadata and the backup more complete, what I've achieved is I've essentially stripped metadata from many of the images.

Or am I missing something?