Google Reader is shutting down tomorrow and many of you must have already moved out to a different service, I am on Feedly now. Now even though Google Reader does allow you to export your subscription using Google Checkout but if you ever wanted to even export the posts of all the subscription you been reading you can actually do that.
Now before I share how it is done and if you are wondering why I would like to do that then the answer from my point is very simple — Its an excellent backup. If you have subscribed your own feeds or something which you always wanted to keep on your drive, then here is your chance.
Warning : Its bit technical!!
Mihai Parparita has written some scripts ( Reader is Dead) which allows to download everything from your Google Reader Account. Below is the list of those things :
- Read items
- Starred items
- Tagged items
- Shared items
- Shared items from the people you were following.
- Comments on shared items
- Liked items
- Unread, emailed, read on your phone, clicked on items.
- All items that have appeared in one of your subscriptions
- Recommended Items
Follow the steps as below and make sure to start now because its only few hours before the apocalypse does it dance.
- Download and then Install Python from here (Choose Windows Installer 2.7.5 in second list)
- Download the Script which Mihai Developed from here. Then extract the files into a separate folder.
- Now Open the command prompt and navigate to that folder and switch to BIN folder inside it.
- Rename the files which you see above with no extension and add “.PY” to the end. You would see that they will get the same icon as PYTHON which you installed above.
To run you have two options here:
Command Prompt:
- Now run the following prompt
bin/reader_archive--use_client_login--output_directory=~/Downloads/reader_archive - In case you get an error message, the type the following in the command prompt first.
set PYTHONPATH=%cd%
c:python27python reader_archivereader_archive.py --output=download
Use the Bat File:
You can also launch the bat file which in turn will trigger the python file and follow the same process. Make sure to add the command lines.
- This will then get into authentication with your Google account and start downloading stuff.
Remember there is no option to download individual archives and hence this will result in huge download process. As an example, Alex Chitu says it was over 5GB for him which is quiet surprising but I guess he is reading too much.
