"Backup" your fedi account, when not self hosting? (self.fediverse)

submitted 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) by FundMECFSResearch to c/fediverse@lemmy.world

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Hi, I’m not self hosting, but I’ve realised I’ve spent a decent amount of time on this social media, and written a few things I may want to revisit in the future.

I was wondering if there was a way to “back up” my account, so if something happened to my host instance, I would still be able to have a copy of the comments and posts I made :).

I’m not expecting to be able to “transfer” my account to a new one, but have a backup of posts and comments for personal storage, having a copy on my harddrive.

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[-] copygirl 10 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Which service? Mastodon has a built-in export functionality in preferences.

I can't find such an option on Lemmy, but you should be able to do a GDPR request for your information as a last resort.

edit: Non-post data / user settings can be exported (and imported!) but posts are a separate issue. See this open issue.

[-] walden@sub.wetshaving.social 14 points 1 week ago

I'm not a lawyer, but since Lemmy instances aren't "professional or commercial activity", I doubt a GPDR request would be applicable.

Some people who run instances might have the ability to do some sort of database export for a specific user, but the vast majority of us are just barely technical enough to keep Lemmy running and updated.

The last time I touched our database I accidentally wiped out all data older than 1 month and had to restore a backup.

I think we do have the option to remove a user by purging them through the UI, but an export isn't an option at this point.

[-] pe1uca@lemmy.pe1uca.dev 5 points 1 week ago

IIRC this was already addressed and should be automatic.
There was an issue specifically mentioning GDPR and the devs implemented a way to automatically delete the data of an account within the given time.

It's not a GDPR request in itself, but AFAIK a normal delete account request should be compliant... INAL

[-] FundMECFSResearch 3 points 1 week ago

Wondering about Lemmy specifically. I know there’s an export option for settings though.

[-] reseller_pledge609@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

I recently had to move, because my previous instance is shutting down. I got to keep all of my settings and the commubities I follow. It also kept blocked accounts and communities, but not blocked instances.

ETA: Comments were not transferred and I'm assuming posts won't be either.

[-] FundMECFSResearch 2 points 1 week ago

Yeah, I know that’s not possible as of now. Just wondering if there is a simpler way to get a copy of my comments and posts than using a web scraper.

[-] copygirl 2 points 1 week ago

I was editing my comment as you were responding. Check the issue on GitHub I linked in the edit, and maybe thumbs it up for visibility. One of the commenters mentions using a third-party tool but I'm not sure the one they linked to can grab posts. In theory another one might exist to dump your post data.