Helps to ensure your privacy on reddit by cleaning up your old posts and comments. Intended to be used with cron.

reddit-privacy.py

#!/usr/bin/env python

# put your username and password here
USERNAME = ""
PASSWORD = ""

import urllib, urllib2, cookielib, json, sys, datetime
from optparse import OptionParser

def read(fd):
  data = fd.read()
  fd.close()
  return data

def should_delete(post, options):
  if options.delete_all:
    return True
  if options.del_posts and 'num_comments' in post:
    return True
  if options.del_comments and 'num_comments' not in post:
    return True
  return False

# handle command line arguments
parser = OptionParser()

parser.add_option("-p", "--del-posts", help = "delete posts",
                  action="store_true", default = False)
parser.add_option("-c", "--del-comments", help = "delete comments",
                  action="store_true", default = False)
parser.add_option("-d", "--days", dest = "DAYS",
                  help = "delete posts after a number of days")
parser.add_option("-s", "--save", dest = "SAVE",
                  help = "save a certain number of items")
parser.add_option("-a", "--delete-all", action="store_true", default = False,
                  help = "delete everything, overriding all other settings")

options, args = parser.parse_args()

if options.delete_all:
  print "Deleting everything."
elif options.del_posts or options.del_comments:
  # print what we're deleting
  print "Deleting",
  if options.del_posts and options.del_comments:
    print "posts and comments",
  elif options.del_posts: print "posts",
  else: print "comments",
  
  # print when we are deleting things
  if options.DAYS is not None:
    if int(options.DAYS) == 1:
      print "more than {0} day old".format(options.DAYS)
    else:
      print "more than {0} days old".format(options.DAYS)
  else: print
    
  # print how many posts we should save
  if options.SAVE is not None:
    if int(options.SAVE) == 1:
      print "Saving {0} item".format(options.SAVE)
    else:
      print "Saving {0} items".format(options.SAVE)
else:
  print "Deleting nothing, exiting..."
  sys.exit()

# save us some cooookies
cookies = urllib2.HTTPCookieProcessor(cookielib.LWPCookieJar())
opener = urllib2.build_opener(cookies)

# log in
params = urllib.urlencode({ 'user': USERNAME,
                            'passwd': PASSWORD,
                            'api_type': 'json' })
data = read(opener.open('http://www.reddit.com/api/login/', params))

# get the modhash
login_json = json.loads(data)
modhash = login_json['json']['data']['modhash']

# get user's posts
posts = []
data = read(opener.open('http://www.reddit.com/user/%s/.json' % USERNAME))

while True:
  posts_json = json.loads(data)
  
  # add each post to the list of posts
  for post in posts_json['data']['children']:
    posts.append(post['data'])
  
  # when we run out of pages, stop
  if posts_json['data']['after'] is None:
    break
  else:
    data = read(opener.open('http://www.reddit.com/user/{0}.json?after={1}'.
                            format(USERNAME, posts_json['data']['after'])))

# delete however many posts we are going to save
if options.SAVE is not None:
  if int(options.SAVE) >= len(posts):
    sys.exit()
  for i in range(0, int(options.SAVE)):
    posts.pop(0)

if options.DAYS is not None:
  # what time is it right now?
  current_time = int(datetime.datetime(2000, 1, 1).utcnow().strftime("%s"))

  # when should we delete posts after?
  del_time = current_time - 24 * 60 * 60 * int(options.DAYS)

  # trim posts that are not old enough from the start
  while len(posts) > 0 and del_time < int(posts[0]['created_utc']):
    print "{0} is not old enough".format(posts[0]['name'])
    posts.pop(0)

# delete all posts
for post in posts:
  if should_delete(post, options):
    params = urllib.urlencode({ 'id': post['name'],
                                'executed': 'deleted',
                                'r': post['subreddit'],
                                'uh': modhash })
    opener.open('http://www.reddit.com/api/del', params)
    print "deleted {0} on {1}".format(post['name'], post['subreddit'])