Reddit is following in Twitter’s footsteps and charging third-party apps for entry to their APIs. The end result: Apollo, probably the most standard Reddit apps for iPhone, is shutting down totally after figuring out that the brand new pricing would price it $2 million a month. RIF, one other standard app, is calling it quits for a similar motive. After the API information, a number of main Reddit communities are blacked out this week in protest.
Reddit has each proper to cost for its API, legally talking, and it stands to realize if extra folks use the (horrible) official app. Reddit CEO Steve Huffman argued in an AMA that the modifications are being overblown. Feedback in that thread are, let’s consider, lower than pleasant to the corporate line.
If all of this leaves you questioning what may occur to the posts and feedback you’ve made on Reddit over time, you’re not alone. David Brownman, a programmer primarily based in San Mateo, California, was questioning precisely that.
“I’ve put a lot into Reddit over time, and I didn’t like the concept of it being inaccessible to me,” he tells me. “It’s my content material, and I’ll must be a steward of it if Reddit received’t. I additionally reference previous posts of mine loads, so having full textual content search was vital to me.”
With these issues in thoughts, Brownman needed an offline archive of his posts. Right here’s how one can get one too, both by asking Reddit or by utilizing a device Brownman constructed to obtain it your self.
Ask Reddit for Your Information
Reddit has a kind the place you possibly can request a duplicate of your information. The method can take as much as 30 days, after which you’re going to get a non-public message in your Reddit a rely with a obtain hyperlink. The information comes within the type of CSV recordsdata which you could open utilizing Microsoft Excel or any textual content editor. There are separate recordsdata in your feedback, your posts, your voting historical past, and your chats, amongst different issues.
This methodology has a number of downsides. First, CSV recordsdata generally is a little unwieldy, particularly if you wish to search. Second, there’s a delay, which is annoying should you simply wish to obtain the information and transfer on along with your life. Nonetheless, it’s straightforward, and for most individuals, that is in all probability one of the best ways to again up their Reddit content material.
Obtain Your Reddit Information Your self
For those who’d reasonably not look ahead to Reddit to ship your information, or would favor to maintain your information in a searchable archive, you should utilize Brownman’s device, reddit-user-to-sqlite. This command line utility can obtain the whole public archive of any Reddit person and compile it in an SQLite database file. Simply understand that this methodology will cease engaged on July 1, 2023, when the API change happens.
Brownman affords a weblog publish outlining the device with a number of directions—should you’re snug with the command line, I like to recommend following the directions there. For everybody else, don’t fear: It’s not as exhausting because it sounds.
First you will want to set up Python. For Home windows customers, that is greatest carried out by downloading and operating the installer in your pc. After putting in Python, you will want to set up pipx. On Home windows, that is greatest carried out with the next instructions, which you’ll run within the Command Immediate or PowerShell: