#vk-liberator

Removes likes and comments from your VKontakte account.

Руководство на русском языке (Russian version)

#Usage

To use this program, you need to get an archive of your data from VK. You can start the export process on this page. Make sure you check Comments when choosing what data to export, or you won′t be able to delete them!. The process usually takes from 2 to 3 days. The resulting archive usually weights less than 150 MB.

As of now, vk-liberator supports the deletion of your likes (essentially, un-liking all posts you′ve ever pressed that heart icon on) and the deletion of your wall comments. Adding support for more object types is pretty trivial, so if you feel the need for more, you′re always welcome to send a patch!

Once you get the archive:

1. Install Python 3.8.
2. Grab vk-liberator and unpack it somewhere you have enough place to store the unpacked VK export.
3. Create a folder in the same directory you′ve unpacked the program and call it, let′s say, "vk". Unpack the archive to the "vk" folder we′ve mentioned before. Make sure all files and directories (such as comments, likes, profile) are all in the aforementioned folder.
4. Start up a command prompt in the program directory:
   • On Windows: open the folder → Shift+RMB → Open command window here;
   • On macOS: open Terminal.app → cd (trailing space intended) → drag the folder into the terminal window → press Enter
5. Install the dependencies: pip3 install -r requirements.txt
6. Run the program: python3 main.py YOUR_FOLDER_HERE --crawl-all, replacing YOUR_PROGRAM_HERE with the folder name you′ve unpacked the export to (in my case, it would′ve been vk).
7. Now you need to get the access token. Go to this page. The access token never leaves your device and is only known to you and VKontakte. You can verify the authenticity by clicking on app′s name on the page. You should be redirected to the official VK API community.
8. Click Allow (Разрешить), then copy a part of the URL between access_token= and &expires_in.
9. Paste it into the terminal and press Enter. Review the statistics and confirm. The export process should begin shortly afterwards.

By default the program finds all items it can understand and runs the deletion process, prompting for a captcha in the terminal window. If you want to customize the behavior, read further.

#Choosing what to delete

vk-liberator has a set of command-line switches for choosing the types of objects to delete:

• --crawl-likes enables deleting of likes,
• --crawl-comments enables deleting of comments.

There is another switch called --crawl-all, which enables all types mentioned before and makes the aforementioned flags toggle the corresponding types off, not on to allow exclusion.

There are many other command-line switches available. You can run the program with --help to learn more.

#Unliking comments

The export archive from VKontakte contains pretty much all info about your liked posts, photos and videos. However, it doesn′t have anything about your liked comments, so you need to do some semi-manual work to retrieve a list of them.

The process roughly expands as follows:

1. first, you delete your likes the usual way;

2. after all likes were deleted, you go to vk.com → “Liked” newsfeed section;

3. scroll all the way down (you can use PgDown or End keys);

4. run this script:

   console.log(Array.from(document.querySelectorAll('.post_link:first-child')).map(el => el.href).join('\n'))
   

5. create YOUR_EXPORT_DIR/likes/comments/ folder and copy the output to comments.html;

6. move everything else out of YOUR_EXPORT_DIR/likes/ because it was already deleted;

7. delete your resume file (resume.bin);

8. and run the program again with the same arguments.

I might optimize this in the future to make it more user-friendly, because it′s a pain and requires knowing some internals, but right now it′s done like that.

#Telegram integration

Sitting on your computer and solving the captchas all day can be pretty tedious, but you can make this process a little bit easier with Telegram integration. I′ve used this to solve captchas from my smartphone, and it was definitely easier than doing it on PC.

To enable it, you need to:

1. Register in Telegram, if you haven't already.
2. Create a bot in BotFather. Type /newbot, then follow the instructions.
3. Start the dialog with your bot. Open a link to your bot′s profile in BotFather′s message and press Start. This is required in order to receive messages!
4. Don′t delete the message from BotFather with the bot token — we′ll need it later. Now, let′s get your profile ID. You can easily do this by messaging IDBot on Telegram, sending a /getid command and copying the ID you got back.
5. Run the program again, but this time add --telegram-chat <your ID goes here> switch. Like this: python3 main.py YOUR_FOLDER_HERE --crawl-all --telegram-chat YOUR_ID.
6. When the program asks you for a bot token, copy and paste it from your dialog with BotFather.

Now you should be getting asked by the bot for captcha. If you don't receive anything, check the chat ID again. It should match your account's ID.

#Anti-captcha.com integration

But this doesn′t really solve the actual problem — the captcha. VKontakte′s limits are pretty strict. You can get a captcha or two when deleting your comments, but rate limits for deleting likes are much stricter — you′re guaranteed to run into a captcha approximately every 50 requests, no matter the delay between requests.

That′s why you can pay with your money instead of your precious time. The program supports integration with Anti-captcha.com (ex-Antigate) to ease your torment. The prices are pretty cheap — I′ve paid $1 for 25K of my VK requests (divide that by 40 to get an approximate count of captcha requests).

1. Register on anti-captcha.com, follow the instructions, get your API key.
2. Run the program with --anticaptcha switch, then paste your API key from the website when asked by the program.