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Mastodon Twitter Sync

Automated tests

This tool synchronizes posts from Mastodon to Twitter and back. It does not matter where you post your stuff - it will get synchronized to the other!

Synchronization Features

  • Your status update on Twitter will be posted automatically to Mastodon
  • Your Retweet on Twitter will automatically be posted to Mastodon with a "RT username:" prefix
  • Your status update on Mastodon will be posted automatically to Twitter
  • Your boost on Mastodon will be posted automatically to Twitter with a "RT username:" prefix
  • Your own threads (your replies to your own posts) will be synced both ways

Old data deletion feature for better privacy

Optionally configuration options can be set to delete posts/favourites from your Mastodon and Twitter accounts that are older than 90 days.

Installation and execution

There are several options how to run mastodon-twitter-sync, the recommended way is to use the precompiled binaries from Github.

Download the executable archive for your operating system platform from the release page and run it in an directory where the configuration and cache files will be stored.

mkdir mastodon-twitter-sync
cd mastodon-twitter-sync
tar xzf /path/to/downloaded/mastodon-twitter-sync-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu.tar.gz
./mastodon-twitter-sync

Follow the text instructions to enter API keys.

Other installation options are described in INSTALL.md

Configuration

All configuration options are created in a mastodon-twitter-sync.toml file in the directory where you executed the program.

Enable automatic status/favourite deletion with config options. Example:

[mastodon]
# Delete Mastodon status posts that are older than 90 days
delete_older_statuses = true
# Delete Mastodon favourites that are older than 90 days
delete_older_favs = true
# Also sync reblogs (boosts).
sync_reblogs = true
# Restrict sync to a hashtag (leave empty to sync all posts)
sync_hashtag = "#sync"

[mastodon.app]
base = "https://mastodon.social"
client_id = "XXXXXXXXXXX"
client_secret = "XXXXXXXXXXX"
redirect = "urn:ietf:wg:oauth:2.0:oob"
token = "XXXXXXXXXXX"

[twitter]
consumer_key = "XXXXXXXXXXX"
consumer_secret = "XXXXXXXXXXX"
access_token = "XXXXXXXXXXX"
access_token_secret = "XXXXXXXXXXX"
user_id = 1234567890
user_name = "example"
# Delete Twitter status posts that are older than 90 days
delete_older_statuses = true
# Delete Twitter likes that are older than 90 days
delete_older_favs = true
# Also sync retweets.
sync_retweets = true
# Restrict sync to a hashtag (leave empty to sync all posts)
sync_hashtag = "#sync"

Preview what's going to be synced

You can preview what's going to be synced using the --dry-run option:

./mastodon-twitter-sync --dry-run

This is running a sync without actually posting or deleting anything.

Skip existing posts and only sync new posts

If you already have posts in one or both of your accounts and you want to exclude them from being synced you can use --skip-existing-posts. This is going to mark all posts as synced without actually posting them.

./mastodon-twitter-sync --skip-existing-posts

Note that combining --skip-existing-posts --dry-run will not do anything. You have to run --skip-existing-posts alone to mark all posts as synchronized in the post cache.

Periodic execution

Every run of the program only synchronizes the accounts once. Use Cron to run it periodically, recommended every 10 minutes as in this example:

*/10 * * * *   cd /home/klausi/workspace/mastodon-twitter-sync && ./mastodon-twitter-sync

Or for the Docker version:

*/10 * * * *   docker run --rm -v /path/to/folder/mastodon-twitter-sync:/data klausi/mastodon-twitter-sync

You can also use Github Actions for free to perform the periodic execution, the setup is explained in the Periodic execution with Github Actions Cron wiki article.