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https://github.com/bunburya/lemmy2opml

Export and import Lemmy community subscriptions
https://github.com/bunburya/lemmy2opml

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Export and import Lemmy community subscriptions

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README 

        
# lemmy2opml



`lemmy2opml.py` is a tool to export and import subscriptions to Lemmy communities. It allows Lemmy users to easily

follow their subscribed communities using an RSS feed reader, and to back up and share their subscribed communities.



Subscriptions are exported to an [OPML](http://opml.org/) file. The OPML file can be imported by most RSS feed readers.

It can also be imported by `lemmy2opml.py` itself, which will then subscribe the given user to the relevant communities.



# Download and run



`lemmy2opml` is a single Python script. It should run on Python 3.9 or higher. It requires the following Python

libraries to be installed:



- [opyml](https://pypi.org/project/opyml/) for OPML file handling

- [requests](https://pypi.org/project/requests/) for making requests to the Lemmy API



To download and run `lemmy2opml`:

```commandline

git clone https://github.com/bunburya/lemmy2opml.git

cd lemmy2opml

python ./lemmy2opml.py

```



## Basic usage



### Export



To export a user's subscribed communities, basic usage is as follows:



`lemmy2opml.py export   `



Where:



- `` is the URL for the Lemmy instance where you have an account, eg, `lemmy.ml` or

  `https://programming.dev`.

- `` is your username on that instance.

- `` is where you want the resulting OPML file to be saved.



For example:

```commandline

lemmy2opml.py export --categories --title "Example OPML file" --include-date programming.dev bba example.opml

```

will produce an OPML file similar to `example.opml`, containing the communities subscribed to by user `bba` on the

`programming.dev` instance.



### Import



To subscribe a user to a list of Lemmy communities contained in an OPML file, basic usage is:



`lemmy2opml.py   import `



Where `` is the path to the OPML file you want to import.



`lemmy2opml` will wait about half a second between each subscription request, as Lemmy's API is rate-limited. Therefore,

subscribing to a large number of communities can take a bit of time. By default, `lemmy2opml` is silent unless it

encounters some issue; if you want more feedback, you can pass the `--debug` argument for more verbose logging.



For example:

```commandline

lemmy2opml.py import programming.dev bba example.opml

```

will subscribe user `bba` on instance `programming.dev` to each of the communities listed in the OPML file at

`example.opml` (assuming they are all reachable and federated with the user's instance, etc).



### Authentication



You need to provide your password so that `lemmy2opml` can get your subscribed communities or subscribe you to new ones.

**Always be careful when providing your password to third party software, and note you do so at your own risk.** You can

view the source code of `lemmy2opml.py` to see exactly what it does with your password.



By default, `lemmy2opml` will ask you to provide your password in the terminal (your input will be hidden from view).

Alternatively, you can provide your password as a separate command line argument (`--password`), or you can store your

password in a file and pass the path to that file as a command line argument (`--pass-file`). Make sure to pass these

before `import` or `export` on the command line.



### Customisation



You can customise `lemmy2opml`'s behaviour using a number of optional command line arguments. For further information on

available command line arguments run:

- `lemmy2opml.py -h`

- `lemmy2opml.py export -h`

- `lemmy2opml.py import -h`



## Development



`lemmy2opml` is written in Python and published under the MIT licence. I have only done some light testing so if you do

encounter any bugs or other issues please file an issue with as much information as possible.