Reddit is following in Twitter’s footsteps and charging third-party apps for entry to their APIs. The end result: Apollo, some of the common Reddit apps for iPhone, is shutting down entirely after figuring out that the brand new pricing would price it $2 million a month. RIF, one other common app, is calling it quits for a similar purpose. 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 individuals 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 assume, 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 through the years, you’re not alone. David Brownman, a programmer based mostly in San Mateo, California, was questioning precisely that.
“I’ve put a lot into Reddit through the years, and I didn’t like the concept of it being inaccessible to me,” he tells me. “It’s my content material, and I’ll have to be a steward of it if Reddit gained’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 Knowledge
Reddit has a kind the place you’ll be able to request a copy of your data. The method can take as much as 30 days, after which you’ll get a personal message in your Reddit account with a obtain hyperlink. The info comes within the type of CSV recordsdata which you could open utilizing Microsoft Excel or any textual content editor. There are separate recordsdata on your feedback, your posts, your voting historical past, and your chats, amongst different issues.
This technique has just a few downsides. First, CSV recordsdata is usually a little unwieldy, particularly if you wish to search. Second, there’s a delay, which is annoying if you happen to simply need to obtain the information and transfer on along with your life. Nonetheless, it’s straightforward, and for most individuals, that is in all probability the easiest way to again up their Reddit content material.
Obtain Your Reddit Knowledge Your self
For those who’d relatively not look forward to Reddit to ship your information, or would favor to maintain your information in a searchable archive, you need to use Brownman’s device, reddit-user-to-sqlite. This command line utility can obtain the entire public archive of any Reddit person and compile it in an SQLite database file. Simply remember that this technique will cease engaged on July 1, 2023, when the API change happens.
Brownman gives a blog post outlining the tool with just a few directions—if you happen to’re snug with the command line, I like to recommend following the directions there. For everybody else, don’t fear: It’s not as onerous because it sounds.
First you’ll need to install Python. For Home windows customers, that is greatest completed by downloading and working the installer on your pc. After putting in Python, you’ll need to install pipx. On Home windows, that is greatest completed with the next instructions, which you’ll run within the Command Immediate or PowerShell:
