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Data Source: Facebook

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Matt Holt edited this page May 25, 2019 · 3 revisions

This data source adds your posts, photos, and videos from Facebook to your timeline.

Facebook
Site https://www.facebook.com
Listing Mode ✅ Download via API
⬜️ Import from file
Data Source ID facebook
Authentication OAuth2
OAuth2 Provider ID facebook
OAuth2 App Config 
[oauth2.providers.facebook]
client_id = "YOUR_APP_ID"
client_secret = "YOUR_APP_SECRET"
auth_url = "https://www.facebook.com/v3.2/dialog/oauth"
token_url = "https://graph.facebook.com/v3.2/oauth/access_token"

Creating OAuth2 App Credentials

See instructions here for creating a Facebook Developer app and getting client credentials to put in your config file.

Adding your Facebook data

Then, add your Facebook account if you haven't already (you will need a browser to authenticate with):

$ timeliner add-account facebook/you

Then bring the rain:

$ timeliner get-all facebook/you

Timeliner will download all the Facebook posts from your feed that it can find, along with all photos and videos attached to them. It will concurrently iterate all albums and download their photos as well.

Caveats

  • According to Facebook's current docs, OAuth2 authorization expires after 3 months of Facebook account inactivity. After 3 months, you will have to reauthenticate. To do this, go to your Facebook account, then Settings -> Apps and Websites -> Expired, then find your app and renew it. Then you will have to run timeliner reauth facebook/you (replacing "you" with your account name, as usual). After that, operations should succeed for another 3 months. I'd love to find a way to not require this, if anyone knows please contribute!

  • Video listings seem to be incomplete, and it is unclear why not all videos show up in API responses. (Help?)

  • Comments are not retrieved.

  • Facebook's Graph API provides a lot of information, potentially, and Timeliner only grabs the most essential parts of it. For a richer data set, consider contributing to this data source to enhance its capabilities.

  • TODO: We think it might be neat to add events, both which the user has created or has showed interest in or attended.

Note: Timeliner does not duplicate the functionality of the Facebook website or app.

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