Develop an import/export feature for Raindrop.io

[gary-host-laptop]

I'm an former Omnivore user and it was scare that they added this function just some time before nuking the app. This looks really good but spending a lot of time building an archive of your bookmarks for them maybe being lost if something happens to the service is a no-go for me to really use this, plus I'd have to manually import everything which would take me days. Adding this feature would highly improve the functionality.

This is off-topic but I made a post of your app on Lemmy, I have seen quite a few happy people over there when they found out about Omnivore so I think they'll love this and maybe someone will be able to help with development, too.

https://lemmy.ml/post/31261882

[gary-host-laptop]

I'm so dumb, I just found it, sorry. Still I imported all my stuff from Omnivore to Raindrop and now I can't import it I guess?

[kimberli]

Appreciate the suggestion! Do you still have your original Omnivore export file?

I poked around the Raindrop documentation, but it doesn't look like Raindrop actually allows you to save / export the contents of bookmarks (except potentially on the pro plan)?

Curio works by saving page content client-side, so third-party integrations need to allow for a way to get the saved page contents alongside their metadata. If Raindrop doesn't actually store page content, I don't think there's an easy way I can support export from Raindrop into Curio, unfortunately.

Let me know if I've misinterpreted - happy to support this if there's a way.

[kimberli]

Also, thanks for the support! Hope you've been enjoying Curio and keep the feedback coming 😄

[gary-host-laptop]

So I've investigated a bit and it seems like Raindrop has automatic daily backups available only in they pro plan, but backups are available for users nevertheless. Basically if you want to download a backup you just need to click on your user, then 'settings', then 'backups', 'create a backup' and wait for it to be created, and then it's available as either an .html or .csv file. This is on the desktop web app.

I'm adding a screenshot so it's more clear how it works, I'm unsure if maybe the way Curio works I could chose some of the other importing options and it would ignore if it comes from Raindrop or not, so I'll wait on your confirmation to import it. Nevertheless I doubt the import process is that much different than from other platforms. I hope this helps and thank you very much for your hard work!

[kimberli]

Appreciate the digging! I did test out the backup feature, but the issue is that the saved backup doesn't actually include the webpage content (i.e. the writing in the article if it's an article). I don't think Raindrop stores that data in general unless you're on the Pro plan, because the UI doesn't show you e.g. a stripped-down version of the article?

[gary-host-laptop]

In my particular case I don't care about that because I have never highlighted anything but it's possible although done in a horrible way, you need to go to the specific highlight and export it, so basically manually export everything. Another reason for stop using their service, tbh.

I guess best case scenario you add a disclaimer next to the import button that says "Raindrop doesn't allow automatic exporting of highlights"?

[kimberli]

Got it. The issue I was referring to earlier wasn't about highlights, but the page content itself. If you look at the exported HTML or CSV, the export only contains the page URLs and metadata. When you save a page to Curio, Curio extracts the article content from the client (your browser or the export file) instead of loading the page in a headless browser in the server--this is to save on server costs and make it economical to offer the service for free. Omnivore exports include the actual article content, which can be imported directly into Curio.

Hope that clears things up, and let me know if you have other suggestions on how to integrate with Raindrop!