ephemeral-tumblr

ephemeral-tumblr is a small script to delete all posts older than some amount, for example a month. This can be used to have a tumblr blog which beheaves more like Snapchat: your posts are only online for a brief period of time, and then they're gone.

this could also be used if you want to delete your embarrassing posts from 3 years ago, if you use -a 94610000.

If you don't want your precious posts to be lost forever, you can use this in conjunction with something like tumblr_backup, and have a local copy of your blog before deletion.

It uses pytumblr, the official python tumblr API client, so you will need to install it first, and set up the OAuth permissions.

setup:

In order for this to work, you have to register for an application in http://www.tumblr.com/oauth/apps. Fill in all the details, and for Default Callback URL, use: http://localhost:3000/auth/tumblr/callback. Click on register, and then go to https://api.tumblr.com/console/calls/user/info. There on the PYTHON tab you will get something like

# Authenticate via OAuth
client = pytumblr.TumblrRestClient(
  'abcatuirsnetnrau',
  'deftasriunternsatuirnes',
  'rtsatuinesrtnauirste',
  'tsraiunterstuiaentens'
)

# Make the request
client.info()

copy the first part (client = pytumblr.TumblrRestClient('xxx','xxx','xxx','xxx')) and past it in the script, replacing the lines

# Authenticate via OAuth (we need it to delete)
client = pytumblr.TumblrRestClient(
    CONSUMER_KEY,
    CONSUMER_SECRET,
    OAUTH_TOKEN,
    OAUTH_TOKEN_SECRET
)

This will allow the script to delete posts on your blogs.

usage:

usage: et.py [-h] [-y] [-a AGE] [-v] tumblr_url

positional arguments:
  tumblr_url         the url of the tumblr blog you want to process. For
                     example, eternal-glitter.tumblr.com

optional arguments:
  -h, --help         show this help message and exit
  -y                 don't ask for confirmation before deleting posts
  -a AGE, --age AGE  maximum age of a post in seconds. By default this is
                     2628000 s = one month
  -v                 verbose