A tool for deleting old toots, written in Python 3.

Prior work

The initial ephemetoot script was based on this tweet-deleting script by @flesueur

ephemetoot relies heavily on the Mastodon.py package by @halcy

Usage

You can use ephemetoot to delete Mastodon toots that are older than a certain number of days (default is 365). Toots can optionally be saved from deletion if:

• they are pinned;
• they include certain hashtags;
• they have certain visibility; or
• they are individually listed to be kept

As of version 2, ephemetoot can be used for multiple accounts. If you have several 'alts', this can be useful. If you don't have your own server or Mac computer, your friend can now add you to their ephemetoot config and it will take care of your old potentially embarrassing toots as well as theirs. However, note the warning below.

Setup

Install Python 3

You need to install Python 3 to use ephemetoot. Python 2 is now end-of-life, however it continued to be installed as the default Python on MacOS until very recently, and may also be installed on your server.

Install ephemetoot

get code with git

If you already have git installed on the machine where you're running ephemetoot, you can download the latest release with:

git clone https://github.com/hughrun/ephemetoot.git
cd ephemetoot
git checkout [tagname]

get code by downloading zip file

If you don't have git or don't want to use it, you can download the zip file by clicking the green Clone or download button above and selecting Download ZIP. You will then need to unzip the file into a new directory where you want to run it.

install using pip

From a command line, move into the main ephemetoot directory (i.e. where the README file is) and run:

pip install .

With some Python 3 installations (e.g on MacOS with Homebrew) you may need to use:

pip3 install .

If you do not have permission to install python modules, you may need to use the --user flag:

pip install . --user

Note that you will need to run the script with the same user.

Obtain an access token

Now you've installed ephemetoot, in order to actually use it you will need an application "access token" from each user. Log in to your Mastodon account using a web browser:

1. Click the settings cog
2. Click on Development
3. Click NEW APPLICATION
4. Enter an application name (e.g. 'ephemetoot'), and give the app both 'read' and 'write' Scopes
5. Click SUBMIT
6. Click on the name of the new app, which should be a link
7. Copy the Your access token string

NOTE: Anyone who has your access token and the domain name of your Mastodon server will be able to:

• read all your private and direct toots,
• publish toots and DMs, and
• delete everything in your account.

Do not share your access token with anyone you do not 100% trust!!!.

Configuration file

As of version 2, you can use a single ephemetoot installation to delete toots from multiple accounts. Configuration for each user is set up in the config.yaml file. This uses yaml syntax and can be updated at any time without having to reload ephemetoot.

Copy example-config.yaml to a new file called config.yaml:

cp example-config.yam config.yaml

You can now enter the configuration details for each user:

setting	description
access_token	required - The alphanumeric access token string from the app you created in Mastodon
username	required - Your username without the '@' or server domain. e.g. hugh
base_url	required - The base url of your Mastodon server, without the 'https://'. e.g. ausglam.space
days_to_keep	Number of days to keep toots e.g. 30. If not value is provided the default number is 365
keep_pinned	Either true or false - if true, any pinned toots will be kept regardless of age
toots_to_keep	A list of toot ids indicating toots to be kept regardless of other settings. The ID of a toot is the last part of its individual URL. e.g. for https://ausglam.space/@hugh/101294246770105799 the id is 101294246770105799
hashtags_to_keep	A list of hashtags, where any toots with any of these hashtags will be kept regardless of age. Do not include the '#' symbol. Do remember the rules for hashtags
visibility_to_keep	Toots with any of the visibility settings in this list will be kept regardless of age. Options are: public, unlisted, private, direct.

All values other than access_token, username and base_url are optional, however if you include toots_to_keep, hashtags_to_keep, or visibility_to_keep you must make each a list, even if it is empty:

toots_to_keep: # this is not a list, it will throw an error
hashtags_to_keep: 
  - # this empty list is ok
visibility_to_keep: [ ] # this empty list is also ok

If you want to use ephemetoot for multiple accounts, separate the config for each user with a single dash (-), as shown in the example file.

Running the script

It is strongly recommended that you do a test run before using ephemetoot live.

To call the script you enter:

ephemetoot

Depending on how many toots you have and how long you want to keep them, it may take a minute or two before you see any results.

Specifying the config location

By default ephemetoot expects there to be a config file called config.yaml in the directory from where you run the ephemetoot command. If you want to call it from elsewhere (e.g. with cron), you need to specify where your config file is:

ephemetoot --config '~/directory/subdirectory/config.yaml'

Running in test mode

To do a test-run without actually deleting anything, run the script with the --test flag:

ephemetoot --test

Slow down deletes to match API limit

With the --pace flag, delete actions are slowed so that the API limit is never reached, using Mastodon.py's 'pace' method. This is recommended for your first run, as unless you have tooted fewer than 30 times you are guaranteed to hit the API limit for deletions the first time you run ephemetoot. If you do not toot very often on most days, it is probably more efficient to use the default behaviour for daily runs after the first time, but you can use --pace every time if you prefer.

Hide skipped items

If you skip a lot of items (e.g. you skip direct messages) it may clutter your log file to list these every time you run the script. You can suppress them from the output by using the --hide_skipped flag.

Include datestamp with every action

If you want to know exactly when each delete action occured, you can use the --datestamp flag to add a datestamp to the log output. This is useful when using --pace so you can see the rate you have been slowed down to.

Combining flag options

You can use several flags together:

ephemetoot --config 'directory/config.yaml' --test --hide_skipped

Use them in any order:

ephemetoot --pace --datestamp --config 'directory/config.yaml'

Instead of coming back to this page when you forget the flags, you can just use the help option:

ephemetoot --help

Scheduling

Deleting old toots daily is the best approach to keeping your timeline clean and avoiding problems with the API rate limit.

Linux and FreeBSD/Unix

To run automatically every day on a n*x server you could try using crontab:

1. crontab -e
2. enter a new line: @daily ephemetoot --config /path/to/ephemetoot/config.yaml
3. exit with :qw (Vi/Vim) or Ctrl + x (nano)

MacOS

On MacOS you can use the --schedule flag to schedule a daily job with launchd. Note that this feature has not been widely tested so please log an issue if you notice anything go wrong.

Run from within your ephemetoot directory:

ephemetoot --schedule

or from anywhere else run:

ephemetoot --schedule directory

where directory is where you installed ephemetoot.
For example if ephemetoot is saved to /User/hugh/python/ephemetoot:

ephemetoot --schedule /User/hugh/python/ephemetoot

By default, ephemetoot will run at 9am every day (as long as your machine is logged in and connected to the internet). You can change the time it is scheduled to run, using the --time flag with --schedule:

ephemetoot --schedule [directory] --time hour minute

For example to run at 2.25pm every day:

ephemetoot --schedule --time 14 25

Rate limits

As of v2.7.2 the Mastodon API has a rate limit of 30 deletions per 30 minutes. mastodon.py automatically handles this. If you are running ephemetoot for the first time and/or have a lot of toots to delete, it may take a while as the script will pause when it hits a rate limit, until the required time has expired. You can use the --pace flag to slow down ephemetoot so that it never hits the limit - this is recommended on your first run. It will not speed up the process but will smooth it out.

Note that the rate limit is per access token, so using ephemetoot for multiple accounts on the same server shouldn't be a big problem, however one new user may delay action on subsequent accounts in the config file.

ASCII / utf-8 errors

Prior to Python 3.7, running a Python script on some BSD and Linux systems may throw an error. This can be resolved by:

• setting a locale that encodes utf-8, by using the environment setting PYTHONIOENCODING=utf-8 when running the script, or
• upgrading your Python version to 3.7 or higher. See Issue 11 for more information.

Upgrading

To upgrade to a new version using git, run the following from inside the ephemetoot directory:

git fetch --tags
git checkout [tagname]
pip install .

Alternatively download and unzip the zip file into your ephemetoot directory over the top of your existing installation, and then run pip install ..

Uninstalling

Uninstall using pip:

pip uninstall ephemetoot

If you scheduled a launchd job on MacOS using --schedule, you will also need to unload and remove the scheduling file:

launchctl unload ~/Library/LaunchAgents/ephemetoot.scheduler.plist
rm ~/Library/LaunchAgents/ephemetoot.scheduler.plist

Bugs and suggestions

Please check existing issues and if your issue is not already listed, create a new one with as much detail as possible (but don't include your access token!).

Contributing

Contributions are very welcome, but if you want to suggest any changes or improvements, please log an issue or have a chat to me on Mastodon before making a pull request.

License

GPL 3.0+