decimate-history-for-reddit v0.9.0

Decimate History For Reddit

Mass nuker for reddit via CLI.

Important Disclaimer

First, if you are planning on deleting every comment/submission, you might want to reconsider. It's pretty annoying to go on a thread and see 50,000 deleted comments, especially if it has valuable information. Consider using filters like subreddits and upvote score.

Second If you are nuking your reddit account in hopes of more privacy, it is for the most part useless. There are third party projects like Pushshift, which logs all reddit content.

Here's a website which uses the Pushshift api to look up reddit content: https://camas.github.io/reddit-search

You'll probably be able to find your old reddit posts and comments on deleted accounts.

There seems to be some exceptions to this:

• If you had comments past a certain date that were deleted/removed, since Pushshift only started up a few years ago.
• Images/videos don't seem to be logged

If you want your data removed for the Pushshift api, you can contact the developer, but looking at comments, he doesn't seem to regularly follow up on it. Also you need verification for the account, so make sure you don't delete it before he confirms it.

Another problem is just reddit itself, they most likely don't delete your comments and submissions from their database, even if you delete them. I believe they stated that when you edit a comment or submission, they do delete the old content, but you would have to take their word for it.

There still might be some value to removing your comments now though, like if someone doesn't care enough to look up the deleted content.

Overall: Assume whatever you post on the internet, stays on the internet. Best thing you can do for the future is just not post any information you wouldn't want online.

Table of Contents

• Alternatives
• Setup
• Usage

Alternatives

There are a lot of alternatives.

• Power Delete Suite
  • Github
  • Reddit
• Shreddit
  • Github
• pythonInRelay/Shreddit
  • Github
• Nuke Reddit History
  • Github
  • Reddit

Overview:

Use PowerDeleteSuite if you don't want to setup anything, easy to use GUI.

Use this program or pythonInRelay/Shreddit if you want a CLI.

Setup

You will need to have NodeJS and npm installed.

Firstly run one of these commands in your terminal to install the cli globally:

# npm
npm install -g decimate-history-for-reddit
# yarn
yarn add -g decimate-history-for-reddit
# pnpm
pnpm add -g decimate-history-for-reddit

After that go to https://www.reddit.com/prefs/apps to make a reddit app.

1. Add a new application by pressing on the button 'create another app'
2. Name doesn't matter, just call it DRH to make it easy to remember
3. Select script
4. Description and about url doesn't matter, you can leave it blank
5. Your redirect url doesn't matter (since you are logging in via username & password). But it does need a value so just put something like http://127.0.0.1:8080

This should be what your screen looks like:

6. Press create app

Now your screen should look like this:

You will find the client id under 'personal use script' (or the part hidden in red)

You will find the client secret next to the label 'secret' (or the part hidden in green)

NOTE: Do not share the client secret with anyone.

Now, you will need a folder dedicated to this program.

Use the command drh config base-folder <path> to set it to folder.

Examples:

# absolute
drh config base-folder C:/Users/john/Downloads/reddit
# current folder
drh config base-folder ./
# relative
drh config base-folder ../reddit

Now add your app details with the following commands (NOTE: your client secret will be on your computer in plain text):

drh config client-id AJKhaIo230Mwla
drh config user-agent "My Unique App"
drh config client-secret --set

Lastly add an account with the command: drh accounts add (NOTE: your account details will be on your comuter in plain text):

drh accounts add
# add username inline, can't enter password this way
drh accounts add Albert283

Now you are set up.

Usage

To delete your comments or posts use the drh main command. Use --help to see all the options.

Examples:

# edit only comments that have been edited
drh main comments --account tapehater775 --action-type edit --edited

# delete only submissions that have been posted before today
drh main submissions --account tapehater775 --action-type delete --before today