pysimplenote

Home page https://github.com/clach04/pysimplenote

Python tools / library for working with Automattic's Simplenote.

Tools for working with:

Python 3 or 2.

Works with either json files or zip export/backup files (NOTE actually uses the json file in the zip and ignores the text files).

Getting Started

Most of the tools work with the standard Python library, e.g. sanity_check_export
- simplenote_export2txt can optionally under Windows use the pywin32 extensions from https://github.com/mhammond/pywin32 to set creation date/time
simplenote_json2yaml requires additional lib, pyyaml

Tools

sanity_check_export

Look for duplicate titles/filenames and notes that are missing (or have suspicious) titles/filenames (only one line, with no body text). Real duplicates or under Microsoft Windows file system allows case for display but is caseless when it compares to storage, for example, music versus Music)

Checks:

filenames in zip
entries in json in both raw json and zip

simplenote_export2txt

Convert json export to text files for easier diff/sync with traditional file based tools

Setting the last modified timestamp metadata correctly, and optionally under Windows setting creation timestamp.

Possible use cases:

view, print, or even edit in plain text editor
synchronize to another filesystem/backend - for example; rsync, FreeFileSync, JSync, rclone, GDrive, OneDrive, ownCloud, Nextcloud, etc.
perform diff across different backups/exports - for example; diff -r, WinMerge, Meld, etc.
find possible problem notes (duplicate titles/first lines and/or long/single-line notes)

Under windows install pywin32 to preserve file creation date

python -m pip install pywin32 --upgrade

Install Dulwich (git is NOT required) if exporting history to git:

pip install dulwich==0.19.16 --global-option="--pure"

Example Usage:

python simplenote_json2yaml.py note.zip
python simplenote_json2yaml.py note.zip use_first_line_as_filename

python simplenote_json2yaml.py simplenote.json
python simplenote_json2yaml.py simplenote.json use_first_line_as_filename

Alternative options via operating system environment variables:

    export SIMPLENOTE_READABLE_FILENAMES=true
    # recommend using import_files_to_git.py and leave false/unset
    export SIMPLENOTE_USE_GIT=true

    env SIMPLENOTE_READABLE_FILENAMES=true SIMPLENOTE_USE_GIT=true python simplenote_export2txt.py export_filename

    set SIMPLENOTE_READABLE_FILENAMES=true
    :: recommend using import_files_to_git.py and leave false/unset
    set SIMPLENOTE_USE_GIT=true

Then look for problem filenames:

ls *__* - find duplicate filenams (also ls dupe__*)
ls *_.txt - find truncated/long titles and/or trailing blanks

Git notes

Speed and sort order

Git support is via Dulwich and is not super fast, also the initial repo will be large. Example, 3.2M json file, ends up as git repo + checkout of 48M. This repo pushed to a modern git server and re-cloned will be 8.6M as repo+checkout.

On one machine same json file:

plain text extract takes 0.6 seconds to extract
with Dulwich git enabled takes 6 mins and 17 seconds.
Same git import with git command line tool takes 37 seconds, repo+checkout is 49M.

ALSO NOTE commit order is in file order (in json file), not last modified orded.

Alternative, disable git support and use import_files_to_git.py to generate a script that will create the git repo with correct order (which tools like GitJournal expect).

gitignore

Recommend creating a .gitignore file, contents something like:

*.bak
*~

File mtime / last modified date / timestamp

git-restore-mtime from https://github.com/MestreLion/git-tools is a Python3 script that can restore last modified (commit) times to files on file system.

simplenote_json2yaml

Convert/export json file to yaml with indents, sorted on id. Requires pyyaml:

pip install pyyaml==3.12

Allows single file diff.

files_to_simplenotesjson

Generate a json file to be imported into SimpleNote based on directory of *.txt and *.md files in the current directory.

expects each file to be utf8 encoded
no (nested) subdirectories

Usage:

# set OS var SIMPLENOTE_EXPORT_FILENAME to output filename, defaults to simplenote_CURRENT_TIMESTAMP.json
python files_to_simplenotesjson.py

Example Unix/Linux:

env SIMPLENOTE_EXPORT_FILENAME=/tmp/simplenote.json python files_to_simplenotesjson.py

Future / TODO ideas

https://github.com/clach04/pysimplenote/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aopen+label%3Aenhancement

Similar/related tools

https://github.com/siviae/gitjournal-simplenote-exporter NOTE expects zip files ONLY (not json, like from Android). Problems:
- does not generate safe filenames (e.g. /) siviae/gitjournal-simplenote-exporter#3
https://github.com/clach04/quillpad_conversion for Quillpad (nee Quillnote)

clach04 / pysimplenote