If you download your #Twitter archive it arrives wrapped as a static HTML page, which is not very useful for doing anything with, and worse: it requires the original account to be still active to do useful things like enlarge the images since they use t.co links.
So here's a #Python script to convert a Twitter archive to #markdown or other formats: https://github.com/timhutton/twitter-archive-parser
Now you can archive your tweets in any way you want.
@timhutton Thanks - that'll be handy.
Am I reading it wrong though? Looking through my archive, I see the full image URl in the entities?
@Edent The archive also contains the full images, though the filenames aren't given in the JSON and have to be constructed as <tweet-id>-<media_url.filename>
My comment about the t.co links was referring to the behavior of the HTML page they give you, which takes you to a t.co link when you click on an image to see the uncropped version.
Here we go ... this discussion should be a good stress test for Chartodon:
Calling @Chartodon LR ...
*whimper*
@Pepijn I don't, sorry. I'm not sure it would work well as a webpage service, because it would need large data transfers.
If you just want a way to view your tweets then open the HTML file in your archive.
@timhutton thank you so much for doing this unfortunately I thought I was very technically advanced 30 year Internet user who knows how to code basic html but since I’ve come to mastodon I realized I’m a complete ignorant noob who doesn’t understand computers.
Can you explain the following to me which I don’t understand it’s like it’s a whole new language I’ve never learned before?:
“Open a command-prompt in that folder
python parser.py”
@dougholton @HelloAndrew @timhutton Thank you all. I gave up already after failures with the parser.py script. Then I found this, and it worked on Windows.
From my point of view, what was missing in the README.md of Tims script, was this step:
3b. Check if you have Python (3?) installed by typing `Python --version` - if not, do it: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/python/beginners
@HelloAndrew Command Prompt
A command prompt is a way of interacting with a computer by typing (and opposed to pointing and clicking).
(More specifically it is the bit where you type commands in a Shell which is displayed by a Terminal).
There are different shells which have various differences but the basics of them are mostly the same. Bash and Zsh are common shells.
How you open one depends on your operating system.
@HelloAndrew On a Mac I use Spotlight and type Terminal. On Linux flavours there will usually by some Terminal app in menu although it might be a little deep by default). On Windows you can use the search feature of the Start menu and look for PowerShell (which has its own flavour of shell).
In That Directory
At the command prompt type “cd” (change directory) followed by a directory name to go down into that directory. Use “..” as the directory name to go up a level.
@HelloAndrew You can also use ls (list) (or sometimes dir (directory)) to list the files in the current directory.
python parser.py
This is the command to run python (a program that executes scripts written in the Python programming language) followed by the name of the script (which will be in the directory you cded into). You will need to install Python to use it.
https://missing.csail.mit.edu/2020/course-shell/ might also be useful.
Hope this helps.
@HelloAndrew You’re welcome, it’s helping pass my commute. I’m probably providing more information than you need (I learn better with more context) which might be a bit overwhelming. Don’t let that discourage you. You know your way around a computer, this is just typing your way around instead of pointing.
The minimum to get up and running is:
1 Open the Terminal
2 Type “cd” then drag the folder on top of the terminal window (to enter its name) then press return
3 Run the Python command
Imgur: The magic of the Internet
@dorward I've now watched and tried it. Watching told me that I should probably have been dragging the folder with the code to Terminal. But when I did exactly as you did, it told me that "python" is an invalid command. So then I tried using the command that the Python runner I downloaded yesterday for my Mac suggested, but Terminal responded "can't find '__main__' module in '/Users/lizl/Downloads/twitter-archive-parser-main'." Not sure what else to try.
Thanks again for trying to help me.
@dorward @lizl_genealogy Hi David. Thanks for this tutorial. I think I'm getting close, but when attempting to run parser.py I'm getting the following error
line 36
f' Error: This script requires Python 3.6 or later.'
^
SyntaxError: invalid syntax
I just downloaded Python 3.11 so I'm wondering what I should do?
@timhutton @f4grx Thanks for that, it'll be useful.
Just raised https://github.com/timhutton/twitter-archive-parser/issues/4 as tweets.js gets split into multiple 101Mb parts if your archive is large
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR SHARING THIS, @timhutton!
I had my Twitter export folder lying in my hard disk for so long that I almost ended up deleting 5 years of my activity on the platform just because it was so itchy to find the stuff I wanted.
I now have a solution, thanks again ❤️
Using pleroma-bot you can suck that twitter archive.zip directly into mastodon, and have them present as toots.
I don't think so, just pull out an API token from your Mastodon profile.
I started doing it via Twitter API's, until I realised that the API doesn't go back far enough. Then when I saw you could put a `archive.zip` directly in, I'm waiting for that to be prepared.
@Daviey @timhutton admins might be unhappy to have thousands of automated posts hitting their server as the archive imports? 💔
If this impacts other users -- and i don't see how it wouldn't -- this will result in angry emails / messages?
Meanwhile, can you post a link to the tool? Sounds super useful.
Sorry, but I think if admins would be unhappy with this, they need to enforce resource limits, which is a feature mastodon supports. It shouldn't be on the user to regulate volume.
(FWIW, I host my own instance so only me that would unhappy)
The tool is here, https://github.com/robertoszek/pleroma-bot
Bot for mirroring one or multiple Twitter accounts in Pleroma/Mastodon/Misskey. - GitHub - robertoszek/pleroma-bot: Bot for mirroring one or multiple Twitter accounts in Pleroma/Mastodon/Misskey.
@Daviey in a different thread I was commenting I hope all Admins / mods know how to use 2-factor authentication. 💔
Safe to say that not everyone running an instance knows about resource limits unless they are pre-configured and installed by default.
@Daviey @wait_sasha people who aren't on a single user instance would be shitting on the commons, so, yes, that would be a really shitty move and not just something admins need to resource throttle
plus, if you're blasting your tweet history as public posts it'll pollute the federated timeline as well
but either way, all servers with people following you would experience higher load
... Then it is the job of the admin to set limits.. Can you imagine if Twitter simply trusted users to not hammer their API?
Regarding too much noise, most people seem to be syncing it as Unlisted so it doesn't pollute the streams.
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