November 16, 2012

Export Google Reader Data in Google Takeout

When Google Reader dropped support for the built-in sharing features and integrated with Google+, the settings page added a long list of JSON files you could save to your computer to export your followers, the items you've shared or starred, your notes and more. Until then, you could only export your subscriptions.


Now all these files can be downloaded from Google Takeout, a service that lets you export data from Google+, Google Drive, Google Contacts, Picasa Web, YouTube and more. Reader is probably the only Google service that sends users to Google Takeout to export data.


Unfortunately, you need to download 8 files even if you only want to export the subscriptions OPML file. Google has to create a ZIP archive first, so you'll have to wait a lot more. Instead of downloading a small XML file, you need to download a large archive (34MB for my account). That's a general issue with Google Takeout, which only lets you download all your YouTube videos, all your Picasa Web photos, all your Google Drive files.

Another service recently added to Takeout is Google Latitude. You can download a JSON file with your location history data.

Let's hope that developers will create cool apps that parse these JSON files and make them more useful. Maybe Google should also offer human-readable formats like HTML.

{ via Data Liberation Blog. Thanks, Herin. }

18 comments:

  1. Mmmm, It sounds as Google is going to close Reader.

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    Replies
    1. Doubtful, they been building these tools into all their services over the last couple of years, eventually all of Google services will be offering their export functions through the data liberation front.

      Delete
    2. RIP Google Reader... http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2013/03/r-i-p-google-reader/

      Delete
  2. I am using Reader more then Gmail. If it is going to close I have many things to say.....

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  3. I love to make backups in google drive and dropbox

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  4. Note that you can still get just the OPML file via https://www.google.com/reader/subscriptions/export

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks, your hint works. Comparing to Google Takeout it is "sss" (short swift smart)
      Hans

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    2. That link doesn't seem to work anymore

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  5. JSON is just as, if not more "human-readable" than HTML. JSON + developers = <3

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  6. I read Google readers like a newspaper I hope they don't go.

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  7. now you can't export your suscriptions to a OPML file. You get 7 .json files and a .xml
    what the heck do I do with them?? Bloglines does not import my suscriptions from a .xml file.

    And now it's official: Google Reader is closing on July 1ยบ.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Bloglines imported my feeds from the xml file this morning with no changing of file names, etc...

      And Feedly is planning to duplicate the api, and will switch your feeds to it when it's ready if you add your google reader to it now, and I'm certain some of the rest that rely on google reader will do the same (I hate Feedly's layout).

      Delete
  8. The best Google application next to Search, maybe better! I will miss it. I downloaded my subscriptions from takeout and renamed subscriptions.xml to subscriptions.opml and imported them back into Liferea.

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    Replies
    1. renamed the xml file to opml and uploaded to bloglovin with what appears to be no problem, thank you for the simple solution rick!

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  9. Been trying to get my reader archive...but once the archive is created, and I hit the download button (after confirming my password again..)I get sent to an error page..Internet Explorer Cannot display your webpage (with a diagnose yoru problem button)

    What's up? Anyone know??

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  10. I managed to import the suscriptions.xml file into a Linux RSS News reader, by just assuming the file is in OPML format (after all, OPML is a type of XML).

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