Markdown Message Conversion

Conversion script from various messaging formats to markdown.

Supported input formats:

• Pidgin/Libpurple chat program HTML-based logs. This backend is not actively maintained.
• SyncTech Backup & Restore XML-based backup format.

Motivation

Messaging applications are mostly good at sending real-time messages to other people, but they generally do not possess any useful archival features. Most messages are write-once read-once, and the apps where built for this use case. More and more through, I am attracted to the prospect of archival; of understanding who I am and who I were when I wrote those messages.

I recently discovered Obsidian and liked the prospect of cross-referencing my notes with my old chat logs. Libpurple uses HTML logs if you haven't configured it to something else (which I haden't).

I no longer use IRC or Pidgin as my entire friend group have switched to using Matrix.

Usage

There are two main import patterns:

• One-off archival import: For when you have a large set of messages to import for a service that you don't use very much anymore.
• Recurring import: For when you are still using the service, and want to import on a recurring basis.

This program will be default not overwrite existing files, as the user might have modified it.

Special consideration must be taking for recurring imports if you expect to be modifying the resulting files, for example if you are inserting links using Obsidian's unlinked mentions feature. You might want to use the --skip-this-period flag to avoid importing the current period until it has become the last period. That way you won't accidentally modify the log, because it has been finalized.

One-off

This is the recommended command for the one-off case:

python -m libpurple_to_markdown LOG_DIRECTORY --output OUTPUT_FOLDER

Recurring

This is the recommended command for the recurring import case:

python -m libpurple_to_markdown LOG_DIRECTORY --output OUTPUT_FOLDER --skip-this-period --period month

TODO

• SyncTech: Decode MMS parts and reconstruct image attachments.

Dependencies

All requirements can be installed easily using:

pip install -r requirements.txt

Full list of requirements:

• beautifulsoup4

License

MIT License

Copyright (c) 2024 Jon Michael Aanes

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy
of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal
in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights
to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell
copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is
furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all
copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR
IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY,
FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE
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OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE
SOFTWARE.