fb2cal

fb2cal

Facebook Birthday Events to ICS file converter

Description

Around 20 June 2019, Facebook removed their Facebook Birthday ICS export option.
This change was unannounced and no reason was ever released.

fb2cal is a tool which restores this functionality.
It works by calling endpoints that power the https://www.facebook.com/events/birthdays/ page.
After gathering a list of birthdays for all the users friends for a full year, it creates a ICS calendar file. This ICS file can then be imported into third party tools (such as Google Calendar or Apple Calendar).

Caveats

• Facebook accounts secured with 2FA are currently not supported (see #9)
• During Facebook authentication, a security checkpoint may trigger that will force you to change your Facebook password.

Requirements

• Facebook account
• Python 3.9+
• pipenv
• Scheduler tool to automatically run script periodically (optional)

PyPi Project

https://pypi.org/project/fb2cal/

Instructions

PyPi (Recommended)

1. In an empty folder of your choice, set up pipenv environment
   pipenv install
2. Install fb2cal module:
   pipenv run pip install fb2cal
3. Download config/config-template.ini file and store it in config/config.ini.
4. Update the config/config.ini file and enter your Facebook email and password (no quotes).
5. Run the fb2cal module
   pipenv run python -m fb2cal
6. Check the output folder (out by default) for the created birthdays.ics file

Local

1. Clone repo
   git clone git@github.com:mobeigi/fb2cal.git
2. Copy config/config-template.ini to config/config.ini.
3. Update the config/config.ini file and enter your Facebook email and password (no quotes).
4. Set up pipenv environment
   pipenv install
5. Run the fb2cal module
   pipenv run python -m fb2cal
6. Check the output folder (out by default) for the created birthdays.ics file

Configuration

This tool can be configured by editing the config/config.ini configuration file.

Section	Key	Valid Values	Description
AUTH	fb_email		Your Facebook login email
	fb_password		Your Facebook login password
FILESYSTEM	save_to_file	True, False	If tool should save ICS file to the local file system
	ics_file_path		Path to save ICS file to (including file name)
LOGGING	level	DEBUG, INFO, WARNING, ERROR, CRITICAL	Logging level to use. Default: INFO

Scheduled Task Frequency

It is recommended to run the script once every 24 hours to update the ICS file to ensure it is synchronized with the latest Facebook changes (due to friend addition/removal) and to respect the privacy of users who decide to hide their birthday later on. Facebook originally recommended polling for birthday updates once every 12 hours based on the X-PUBLISHED-TTL:PT12H header included in their ICS files.

Testing

1. Set up pipenv environment
   pipenv install
2. Install the fb2cal module
   pipenv run python -m pip install .
3. Run the unittests module on the tests folder
   pipenv run python -m unittest discover tests

Troubleshooting

If you encounter any issues, please open the config/config.ini configuration file and set the LOGGING level to DEBUG (it is INFO by default). Include these logs when asking for help.

Contributions

Contributions are always welcome! Just make a pull request.

Licence

GNU General Public License v3.0