fb2cal

Facebook Birthday Events to ICS file converter

Description

Around 20 June 2019, Facebook removed their Facebook Birthday ics export option.
This change was unannounced and no reason was ever released.

fb2cal is a tool which restores this functionality.
It works by calling various async endpoints that power the https://www.facebook.com/events/birthdays/ page.
After gathering a list of birthdays for all the users friends for a full year, it creates a ICS calendar file which is then stored on Google Drive as a publically shared file. This ICS file can then be imported into third party tools (such as Google Calendar).
The ICS file can also be stored on the local file system.

This tool does not use the Facebook API.

Requirements

• Facebook account
• python3.6+ (and all required python3 modules)
• Scheduler tool to automatically run script periodically (optional)
• Google Drive API access (optional)

Instructions

1. Clone repo
   git clone git@github.com:mobeigi/fb2cal.git
2. Create a Google Drive API credentials
   1. Visit the Google Drive APIs page: https://console.developers.google.com/apis/api/drive.googleapis.com/overview
   2. Create a new project (if you don't already have one)
   3. Enable API (if not already enabled)
   4. Create OAuth consent screen if required
   5. Create Credentials (OAuth client ID)
   6. Download credentials JSON file
3. Rename credentials JSON file to credentials.json and put it in the src folder
4. Rename config/config-template.ini to config/config.ini and enter your Facebook email and password as well as a name for your calender to be saved on Google Drive. Initially, the value for the drive_file_id field should be empty.
5. Install required python modules
   pip install -r requirements.txt
6. Run script manually once for testing purposes: python ./fb2cal.py
7. Check Google Drive to ensure your ics file was made.
8. Setup Cron Jobs/Task Scheduler/Automator to repeatedly run the script to periodically generate an updated ics file. See Scheduled Task Frequency section for more info.
9. Use the following link to import your ics into Calendar applications (i.e. Google Calendar):
   http://drive.google.com/uc?export=download&id=DRIVE_FILE_ID. Replace DRIVE_FILE_ID with the autopopulated value found in your config/config.ini file.

Configuration

This tool can be configured by editing the config/config.ini configuration file.

Section	Key	Valid Values	Description
AUTH	fb_email		Your Facebook login email
	fb_password		Your Facebook login password
DRIVE	upload_to_drive	True, False	If tool should automatically upload ICS file to Google Drive
	drive_file_id		The file id of file to write to on Google Drive. Leave blank to create a new file for the first time.
	ics_file_name		The name of the file to be stored/updated on Google Drive.
FILESYSTEM	save_to_file	True, False	If tool should save ICS file to the local file system
	ics_file_path		Path to save ICS file to (including file name)
LOGGING	level	DEBUG, INFO, WARNING, ERROR, CRITICAL	Logging level to use. Default: INFO

fb2cal Setup Guide for Non-Devs [Windows]

Scheduled Task Frequency

It is recommended to run the script once every 24 hours to update the ICS file to ensure it is synchronized with the latest Facebook changes (due to friend addition/removal) and to respect the privacy of users who decide to hide their birthday later on. Facebook originally recommended polling for birthday updates once every 12 hours based on the X-PUBLISHED-TTL:PT12H header included in their ICS files.

Caveats

• Facebook accounts secured with 2FA are currently not supported (see #9)
• During Facebook authentication, a security checkpoint may trigger that will force you to change your Facebook password.
• Some locales are currently not supported (see #13)

Contributions

Contributions are always welcome! Just make a pull request.

Licence

GNU General Public License v3.0