This script is heavily derived from lucahammer's fediporter Python Notebook. 98% of the script was written by lucahammer; I've simplified and adjusted some things to run more reliably for myself, and figured I'd share it here (along with my rate-limiting mods) if it's helpful for anyone. Thank you Luca for the script!

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twitter-archive-to-mastodon

This is a server-side Python3 script you can use to import your Twitter archive into a Mastodon instance you are running and have server access to. With mods to your Mastodon instance, you can remove rate limiting, have your toots backdated, and not push these toots out to your followers (because that would probably annoy them).

When migrating archived Tweets to Mastodon, this script will do the following:

• Upload media
• t.co short URLs are replaced with their targets
• Replace @username with @username@twitter.com
• Threads are recreated as threads, though this is fragile; threads may sometimes have missing posts
• Retweets are skipped (I figure you wouldn't want these on your profile anyway)
• Replies and tweets that start with "@" are skipped

Limitations:

• ⚠️ Private Twitter Circle tweets will become public toots!
• I have no idea what happens if the script comes across a poll
• Alt text is not included since the archive doesn't include them
  • Luca was working on fetching alt text from Twitter in his notebook
• Edit history isn't imported

Using this script, I was successfully able to import 2,300+ tweets from all the way back in 2010.

Note that I don't plan to actively maintain or expand this script, but feel free to open PRs.

Mod Mastodon

The first few mods are to add a "created_at" parameter to the status-posting API. The second set of mods is to remove rate-limiting.

⚠️ MOD AT YOUR OWN RISK! Nothing is guarenteed and what works with one version might break everything in the next version. Take a backup prior to modding. ⚠️

⚠️ You can and should revert these changes after you're done importing! Leaving disabled and/or ridiculously high rate limits makes your instance suspectible to attack. ⚠️

After modding, you need to restart the daemon and Mastodon with the following commands:

systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl restart mastodon-*

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In app/controllers/api/v1/statuses_controller.rb:

In PostStatusService, add created_at: status_params[:created_at], and set with_rate_limit to false:

  def create
    @status = PostStatusService.new.call(
      current_user.account,
      text: status_params[:status],
      thread: @thread,
      media_ids: status_params[:media_ids],
      sensitive: status_params[:sensitive],
      spoiler_text: status_params[:spoiler_text],
      visibility: status_params[:visibility],
      language: status_params[:language],
      scheduled_at: status_params[:scheduled_at],
      created_at: status_params[:created_at],
      application: doorkeeper_token.application,
      poll: status_params[:poll],
      idempotency: request.headers['Idempotency-Key'],
      with_rate_limit: false
    )

In status_params, add :created_at,:

  def status_params
   params.permit(
     :status,
     :in_reply_to_id,
     :sensitive,      :spoiler_text,      :visibility,
     :language,
     :scheduled_at,
     :created_at,
     media_ids: [],
     poll: [
       :multiple,
       :hide_totals,
       :expires_in,
       options: [],
     ]
   )
 end

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In app/services/post_status_service.rb:

Wrap the DistributionWorker and ActivityPub lines in an if-statement checking for :created_at:

  def postprocess_status!
    Trends.tags.register(@status)
    LinkCrawlWorker.perform_async(@status.id)
    if not @options[:created_at]
      DistributionWorker.perform_async(@status.id)
      ActivityPub::DistributionWorker.perform_async(@status.id)
    end
    PollExpirationNotifyWorker.perform_at(@status.poll.expires_at, @status.poll.id) if @status.poll
  end

In status_attributes, add created_at: @options[:created_at],:

  def status_attributes
    {
      text: @text,
      created_at: @options[:created_at],
      media_attachments: @media || [],
      ordered_media_attachment_ids: (@options[:media_ids] || []).map(&:to_i) & @media.map(&:id),
      thread: @in_reply_to,
      poll_attributes: poll_attributes,
      sensitive: @sensitive,
      spoiler_text: @options[:spoiler_text] || '',
      visibility: @visibility,
      language: valid_locale_cascade(@options[:language], @account.user&.preferred_posting_language, I18n.default_locale),
      application: @options[:application],
      rate_limit: @options[:with_rate_limit],
    }.compact
  end

In app/lib/rate_limiter.rb:

Increases the statuses rate limit to something absurd. Example (changed 300 to 300000):

    statuses: {
      limit: 300000,
      period: 3.hours.freeze,
    }.freeze,

In config/initializers/rack_attack.rb:

Change three API-related throttles towards the bottom:

  throttle('throttle_authenticated_api', limit: 300000, period: 5.minutes) do |req|
    req.authenticated_user_id if req.api_request?
  end

  throttle('throttle_api_media', limit: 300000, period: 30.minutes) do |req|
    req.authenticated_user_id if req.post? && req.path.match?(/\A\/api\/v\d+\/media\z/i)
  end

  throttle('throttle_media_proxy', limit: 300000, period: 10.minutes) do |req|
    req.throttleable_remote_ip if req.path.start_with?('/media_proxy')
  end

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⚠️ You can and should revert these changes after you're done importing! Leaving disabled and/or ridiculously high rate limits makes your instance suspectible to attack. ⚠️

The original "limit" values were:

• throttle_authenticated_api: 300
• throttle_api_media: 30
• throttle_media_proxy: 30

After modding, you need to restart the daemon and Mastodon with the following commands:

systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl restart mastodon-*

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Running

Transfer archive

You'll need your Twitter archive on your server. I use FileZilla for easy and reliable transferring.

You'll need to unzip your archive once it's on the server.

Configs

Near the top of import.py are some variables you need to update:

• API_BASE_URL is the URL of your Mastodon instance (e.g. https://example.com)
• MASTODON_ACCESS_TOKEN is your private API access token you need to post toots. You can get a token by going to Preferences -> Development -> New Application. Specify your application name (which will show up below your imported toots) and, optionally, a link (I put my Twitter profile link).
• DATA_DIR is the location of your unzipped Twitter archive. Needs a trailing slash.
• MEDIA_DIR is the location of your Twitter archive's media folder (/tweets_media). Needs a trailing slash.
• TWITTER_USERNAME is your Twitter username (no @). This is used to track your threads.

Dependencies

Have Python3 and Pip installed.

Using pip, install requests, tqdm, and ipywidgets

Run

After updating the configs and installing the dependencies, simply run python3 import.py and hopefully it works!

The script will output Tweet data as it runs.