cleantweets

A command line script to delete and/or unlike tweets (and export them prior to that). Tweets can be "protected" from deletion by their IDs, if they contains keywords, by their age, or (for own tweets) by the number of retweets and likes.

Original script by Mathew Inkson (http://www.mathewinkson.com/2015/03/delete-old-tweets-selectively-using-python-and-tweepy) released unter the "Unlicense" (http://unlicense.org) as public domain. Fork of a modified version published on GitHub by Daniel Faulknor (also public domain under the "Unlicense").

Some of the things I've added/changed:

• added command line arguments
• added settings.ini for defaults and auth data
• export tweets (as JSON)
• wait after tweepy errors, then restart (e.g. work around rate limiting in a very simple way)
• some exception handling / value validation (incomplete)

You can use cleantweets.py to just export your tweets / liked_tweets by adding both --export and --simulate to --delete/--unlike. The tweets will be exported to JSON, but the deletion/unliking won't be actually executed.

Usage

usage: cleantweets.py [-h] [--delete] [--unlike] [--export] [--simulate]
                       [--verbose] [--config PATH] [--wait N] [--days N]
                       [--likes N] [--retweets N] [--tweetids ID,ID,...]
                       [--tweetkws KW,KW,...] [--likedids ID,ID,...]
                       [--likedkws KW,KW,...]

Unlike or delete (re-)tweets (and optionally export them first). Set other
parameters via configuration file (default: "settings.ini" in script
directory) or arguments. Set arguments will overrule the configuration file.

optional arguments:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  --delete              delete tweets
  --unlike              unlike tweets
  --export              export before deleting/unliking
  --simulate            only simulate the process
  --verbose             enable detailed output
  --config PATH         custom config path (for multiple profiles)
  --wait N              wait N minutes after errors/rate limiting
  --days N              keep last N days of tweets/likes
  --likes N             keep tweets with at least N likes
  --retweets N          keep tweets with at least N retweets
  --tweetids ID,ID,...  comma-separated list of tweet ids to keep
  --tweetkws KW,KW,...  comma-separated list of keywords for tweets
  --likedids ID,ID,...  comma-separated tweet ids for liked tweets
  --likedkws KW,KW,...  comma-separated list of keywords for liked tweets

Configuration file (settings.ini)

If a corresponding command line argument is provided, it will override the value specified in the configuration file.

[Authentication]
ConsumerKey = YOUR_CONSUMER_KEY_HERE
ConsumerSecret = YOUR_CONSUMER_SECRET_HERE
AccessToken = YOUR_ACCESS_TOKEN_HERE
AccessTokenSecret = YOUR_ACCESS_TOKEN_SECRET_HERE

[DefaultValues]
DaysToKeep = ONLY_DELETE_TWEETS_OLDER_THAN_DAYSTOKEEP_DAYS
LikedThreshold = NUMBER_OF_LIKES_TO_PROTECT_TWEET_OR_-1_TO_DISABLE
RetweetThreshold = NUMBER_OF_LIKES_TO_PROTECT_TWEET_OR_-1_TO_DISABLE

[DefaultPaths]
TweetIDsPath = PATH_TO_A_TEXT_FILE_WITH_ONE_TWEET_ID_PER_LINE
LikedIDsPath = PATH_TO_A_TEXT_FILE_WITH_ONE_TWEET_ID_PER_LINE
TweetKeywordsPath = PATH_TO_A_TEXT_FILE_WITH_ONE_KEYWORD_PER_LINE
LikedKeywordsPath = PATH_TO_A_TEXT_FILE_WITH_ONE_KEYWORD_PER_LINE

Examples

A couple of example calls from the command line:

python3 cleantweets.py --delete

Delete all tweets. Load options from "settings.ini".

python3 cleantweets.py --delete --config "another_settings_file.ini"

Delete all tweets. Load other options from "another_settings_file.ini" instead of the default "settings.ini"

python3 cleantweets.py --delete --days 10

Delete all tweets that are more than 10 days old. Load other options from "settings.ini".

python3 cleantweets.py --delete --likes 5

Delete all tweets that have fewer than 5 likes.Load other options from "settings.ini".

python3cleantweets.py --delete --retweets 5

Delete all tweets that have fewer than 5 retweets. Load other options from "settings.ini".

python3 cleantweets.py --delete --days 30 --retweets 5

Delete all tweets that are more than 30 days old, but only if they have fewer than 5 retweets. Load other options from "settings.ini".

python3 cleantweets.py --unlike --tweetids "755877343051259906,755872834258337792"

Delete all tweets, except the tweets with the ID 755877343051259906 and 755872834258337792. Load other options from "settings.ini"

python3 cleantweets.py --unlike --likedkws "python,pandas,flask

Unlike all tweets, except those containing either "python" or "pandas" or "flask" (case-insensitive). Load other default options from "settings.ini".

python3 cleantweets.py --unlike --verbose

Unlike all tweets, detailed output

python3 cleantweets.py --export --delete

Export and delete all tweets.

python3 cleantweets.py --export --delete --unlike --verbose

Export all tweets and liked tweets, delete all tweets, unlike all liked tweets, detailed output

Cron job

crontab -l

crontab -e

@daily cd ~/cleantweets && ./autorun.sh # Run once a day

Requirements

• Python 3
• tweepy

License

Apache License (2.0)