GitHub TakeOut

Hackable scripts to archive your GitHub data using GitHub's API: Download all your Gists, all starred Gists, all forked Gists, list of starred Repositories, CSV exports of Gists and more.

If you are considering deleting a GitHub previous work-account, sunsetting an underutilized account, or simply desiring a comprehensive backup of your GitHub contributions – be it Gists, starred Gists, forked Gists, starred Repositories – you will find here scripts to archive your GitHub data using GitHub's API, enabling you to create a CSV list of your contributions or download the files themselves.

Features

• Download all your Gists
• Download all your starred Gists
• Download all your forked Gists
• Download a list of all your Gists as a CSV
• Download a list of all your starred Gists as a CSV
• Download a list of all your starred Repositories as a CSV

Look at the code for the options you can use to customize the scripts to your needs. Start from the bin folder and work your way up to the function files where you can hack the fields you want to include in the CSV files, or adjust the options. There are hidden options such as excluding the Gists you have starred but belong to you. This is so that it wouldn't duplicate with the Gists when you would download your Gists and your starred Gists, but it may be useful to disable that for some other use case.

Usage

First create a GitHub token by following the instructions here to create a fine-grained token.

Then, checkout the repo and install the dependencies:

# Setup
git clone https://github.com/devarda/github-takeout.git
cd github-takeout
yarn install

Then, create a .env file (or copy sample.env) in the root of the project and add the following:

GITHUB_TOKEN=your_github_token

Then, run the script you want in the bin folder where you can adjust the options in the script. Or you may use the package scripts described below.

Download Everything

This script will create the folder defined in dirFileNameConstants.js and download everything in respective folders and files.

# download everything
yarn download-all

Download Forked Gists

This script will download the Gists that you have forked. Each gist will be in a separate folder where the name of the folder is determined by the description or the id of the gist if the description is not available. The files will be stored in the gist folder as separate files.

# download forked gists
yarn download-forked-gists

Download All Gists Created By You

This script will download Gists created by you, minus the ones that you've forked. The distinction is made because if you are the type of person that forks and modifies your Gists then you can easily copy the contents of forked-gists and combine them with your Gists. If you are the type of person that forks to keep a copy of the original then you can have a separate folder for each.

# download my gists
yarn download-my-gists

Download All Gists You've Starred

This script will download the gists that you have starred.

# download starred gists
yarn download-starred-gists

List All Gists As CSV

These scripts will list all your Gists in a CSV file. You have the option of listing the Gists with files or without files. The list with files is meant to act as an index for the Gists that you've downloaded and have redundant information of the Gist group for sorting, and one row per file under the Gist. The list will include forked and original Gists that are in your account.

# list gists with files
yarn list-gists-with-files

# list gists
yarn list-gists

List All Gists You've Starred As CSV

These scripts will list all the Gists you've starred in a CSV file. You have the option of listing the Gists with files or without files like the previous script.

# list starred gists with files
yarn list-starred-gists-with-files

# list starred gists
yarn list-starred-gists

List Starred Repositories

Use cases:

• You want to see a list of repositories you have starred.
• You want to see when you starred a repository.
• You want to figure out the popular repositories you have starred.
• You want to see the languages, licenses, homepages, your permissions of the repositories you have starred.
• You want to see the topics of the repositories you have starred.
• You want to see which repositories are private, archived, or is a fork (with source repo of fork).

# list starred repos
yarn list-starred-repos

Example:

owner	name	starred_at	url	description	is_fork	fork_of	default_branch	license	size	homepage	is_private	my_permissions	is_archived	created_at	updated_at	last_push_at	language	tags	forks_count	open_issues_count	stargazers_count	watchers_count	has_wiki	has_projects	has_downloads	has_issues	has_pages	has_discussions
mochajs	mocha	Sun Jan 28 2018 19:49:10 GMT-0500 (Eastern Standard Time)	https://github.com/mochajs/mocha	☕️ simple, flexible, fun javascript test framework for node.js & the browser	false		master	MIT License	23904	https://mochajs.org	false	pull	false	Mon Mar 07 2011 13:44:25 GMT-0500 (Eastern Standard Time)	Thu May 16 2024 17:17:38 GMT-0400 (Eastern Daylight Time)	Thu May 16 2024 04:02:51 GMT-0400 (Eastern Daylight Time)	JavaScript	bdd, browser, javascript, mocha, mochajs, node, nodejs, tdd, test, test-framework, testing, testing-tools	2987	238	22450	22450	true	false	true	true	false	false

Support This Project

If you find this project helpful, please consider supporting me. I am an independent developer, and my work is for you! Every bit helps. ❤️