6.6 KiB
Twoot
Twoot is a python script that mirrors tweets from a twitter account to a Mastodon account. It is simple to set-up on a local machine, configurable and feature-rich.
UPDATE 04 JAN 2023 VERSION 3.1.2
- Posting Privacy setting of the Mastodon account now defines visibility of toots posted with Twoot
- Modified URL building for compatibility with Windows
Previous updates can be found in CHANGELOG.
Features
- Fetch timeline of given user from twitter.com (through nitter instance)
- Scrape html and format tweets for post on mastodon
- Emojis supported
- Upload images from tweet to Mastodon
- Optionally upload videos from tweet to Mastodon
- Specify maximum age of tweet to be considered
- Specify minimum delay before considering a tweet for upload
- Remember tweets already tooted to prevent double posting
- Optionally post reply-to tweets on the mastodon account
- Optionally ignore retweets
- Optionally remove redirections (e.g. reveal destination of short URLs)
- Optionally remove trackers (UTM parameters) from URLs
- Optional domain substitution for Twitter, Youtube and Reddit domains (e.g. Nitter, Invidious and teddit respectively)
- Optional footer line to add tags at bottom of toot
- Allows rate-limiting posts to Mastodon instance
Usage
twoot.py [-h] [-f <.toml config file>] [-t <twitter account>] [-i <mastodon instance>]
[-m <mastodon account>] [-p <mastodon password>] [-r] [-s] [-l] [-u] [-v] [-o]
[-a <max age in days)>] [-d <min delay (in mins>] [-c <max # of toots to post>]
Arguments
Assuming that the Twitter handle is @SuperDuperBot and the Mastodon account is sd@example.com on instance masto.space:
Switch | Description | Example | Required |
---|---|---|---|
-f | path of .toml file with configuration |
SuperDuper.toml |
No |
-t | twitter account name without '@' | SuperDuper |
If no config file |
-i | Mastodon instance domain name | masto.space |
If no config file |
-m | Mastodon username | sd@example.com |
If no config file |
-p | Mastodon password | my_Sup3r-S4f3*pw |
Once at first run |
-v | Upload videos to Mastodon | N/A | No |
-o | Do not add "Original tweet" line | N/A | No |
-r | Post reply-to tweets (ignored by default) | N/A | No |
-s | Skip retweets (posted by default) | N/A | No |
-l | Remove link redirections | N/A | No |
-u | Remove trackers from URLs | N/A | No |
-a | Max. age of tweet to post (in days) | 5 |
No |
-d | Min. age before posting new tweet (in minutes) | 15 |
No |
-c | Max number of toots allowed to post (cap) | 1 |
No |
Notes
Password
A password must be provided for the first run only. Once twoot has connected successfully to the
Mastodon host, an access token is saved in a .secret
file named after the mastodon account,
and a password is no longer necessary (command-line switch -p
is not longer required).
Config file
A default.toml
file is provided to be used as template. If -f
is used to specify a config file
to use, all the other command-line parameters are ignored, except -p
(password) if provided.
Removing redirected links
-l
will follow every link included in the tweet and replace them with the url that the
resource is directly dowmnloaded from (if applicable). e.g. bit.ly/xxyyyzz -> example.com
Every link visit can take up to 5 sec (timeout) therefore this option will slow down
tweet processing.
If you are interested by tracker removal (-u
) you should also select redirection removal
as trackers are often hidden behind the redirection of a short URL.
Uploading videos
When using the -v
switch consider:
- whether the copyright of the content that you want to cross-post allows it
- the storage / transfer limitations of the Mastodon instance that you are posting to
- the upstream bandwidth that you may consume on your internet connection
Rate control
Default max age is 1 day. Decimal values are OK.
Default min delay is 0 minutes.
No limitation is applied to the number of toots uploaded if -c
is not specified.
Installation
Make sure python3 is installed.
Twoot depends on beautifulsoup4
and Mastodon.py
python modules. Additionally, if you are using
a version of python < 3.11 you also need to install the tomli
module.
Only If you plan to download videos with the -v
switch, are the additional dependencies required:
- Python module
youtube-dl2
- ffmpeg (installed with the package manager of your distribution)
pip install beautifulsoup4 Mastodon.py youtube-dl2
In your user folder, execute git clone https://gitlab.com/jeancf/twoot.git
to clone repo with twoot.py script.
Add command line to crontab. For example, to run every 15 minutes starting at minute 1 of every hour and process the tweets posted in the last 5 days but at least 15 minutes ago:
1-59/15 * * * * /path/to/twoot.py -t SuperDuper -i masto.space -m sd@example.com -p my_Sup3r-S4f3*pw -a 5 -d 15
Featured Accounts
Twoot is known to be used for the following feeds (older first):
- @todayilearned@noc.social
- @moznews@noc.social
- @hackster_io@noc.social
- @cnxsoft@noc.social
- @unrealengine@noc.social
- @phoronix@noc.social
- @uanews@fed.celp.de
- @theregister@geeknews.chat
- @arstechnica@geeknews.chat
- @slashdot@geeknews.chat
Background
I started twoot when tootbot stopped working. Tootbot relied on RSS feeds from https://twitrss.me that broke when Twitter refreshed their web UI in July 2019.