How To Keep A Running Backup Of Your Reddit Account Using Zapier
A way to keep your Reddit account always replicated to a second data source
You may have heard that I’ve got something of a ‘thing’ for backups.
You may also know that I have something of a thing for Reddit.
Today, I succeeded in helping the man who basically controls how the world time zones are displayed on our computers — Paul Eggert — go low-grade viral on the network. (The time zone project is mired in some sort of weird controversy right now, but I’m glad to see Eggert getting the recognition he deserves for doing such a vital service to the internet and computer users. His students at UCLA are apparently fascinated to learn that he’s a time zone lynch-pin as well as a lecturer.)
If you’re a regular Reddit user, then the thought of your data one day vanishing from Reddit may cause you a little anxiety. For good reason. Somebody else — namely Reddit — maintains it. And that violates the golden rule of backups (besides 3–2–1 that is): don’t let anybody else EVER be responsible for your data — irrespective of whether they’re a colossal software company or your coworker’s uncle with some spare space on his server). Or if they are, make sure you keep your own copy. (Rule 3: cloud does not equal backup. Write that 100 times).
So here’s what I recommend doing: periodically requesting an export from Reddit.
But that’s a laggy process that relies upon you remembering to do it periodically. Better than nothing but very far from ideal.
Another methodology would be to back up your Reddit post history on a more ongoing basis. Duplicate it over to a second data source — like Google Drive — and then pull that into your broader backup approach.
This is the process I want to describe today. I’ll use Zapier as the obvious automation tool.
Firstly, Connect Your Reddit Account To Zapier
Screenshots probably not necessary but why not be thorough?
Search through the app connectors and connect your Reddit account(s).
Next, I set up a Google Sheet called My Reddit Posts and left it blank:
Create a new zap with the trigger being you creating new posts on Reddit:
Now here’s where things are going to get a bit unconventional.
Look at what our options are:
See what’s missing? New post by user!
What we can do instead is use Reddit’s little known search syntax to just set the search to be any posts by …. me.
To test things out create a post:
For whatever reason, Reddit seems to exclude profile posts from the search. So to make sure it was working, I had to instead create a post in an obscure subreddit I set up that nobody has joined yet
Sometimes this is a little laggy. So have patience.
The action is going to be creating a new row in our Google Sheet with our post:
And then connect your particular backup spreadsheet.
Make sure it’s set up correctly:
Then choose which data you want to mirror across. Zapier has test data that you can use to play around with.
And you can format these within a row also:
Zapier will send a test row which you can then inspect:
