A simple script to scrape a google group.

scrape_google_groups.py

import json
from os.path import exists
from selenium import webdriver
from selenium.webdriver.support.ui import WebDriverWait
from selenium.common.exceptions import TimeoutException


class GoogleGroupsScraper(object):
    """ A simple class to scrape a google group. """

    #### object interface #####################################################

    def __init__(self, url, verbose=False, persistence_file='group.json'):
        self.url = url
        self.driver = self._get_driver()
        self.wait = WebDriverWait(self.driver, 30)
        self.verbose = verbose

        self.persistence_file = persistence_file
        self.thread_urls = []
        self.raw_urls = []
        self._current_thread_index = -1
        self._current_message_index = -1
        self._get_state()

    #### GoogleGroupsScraper interface ########################################

    def get_all_thread_urls(self):
        """ Return and persist the urls for all the threads. """

        if len(self.thread_urls) == 0:
            self.driver.get(self.url)
            post_list = self._scroll_to_get_all_posts()
            self.thread_urls = self._get_urls_from_post_list(post_list)

        else:
            print 'Using persisted urls ...'

        if self.verbose:
            print 'Found %d threads.' % len(self.thread_urls)

        self._set_state()

    def get_all_raw_urls(self):
        """ Return all the raw urls in the forum. """

        self.get_all_thread_urls()

        for i, url in enumerate(self.thread_urls):
            if i <= self._current_thread_index:
                continue
            if self.verbose:
                print 'Fetching raw urls in thread: %d' % i
            self.raw_urls.extend(self._get_all_raw_urls_in_thread(url))
            self._current_thread_index = i
            self._set_state()

        return self.raw_urls

    def save_all_posts(self):
        """ Save all the posts to a persist directory. """

        self.get_all_raw_urls()

        for i, url in enumerate(self.raw_urls):
            if i <= self._current_message_index:
                continue
            if self.verbose:
                print 'Saving message %d of %d' % (i, len(self.raw_urls))
            self._save_content_of_messages(url)
            self._current_message_index = i
            self._set_state()

    #### Private interface ####################################################

    def _get_driver(self):
        """ Get the web-driver for the scraper. """

        driver = webdriver.Firefox()
        driver.implicitly_wait(30)

        return driver

    def _get_all_raw_urls_in_thread(self, thread_url):
        """ Return the raw urls of all the messages in the given thread. """

        self.driver.get(thread_url)

        # fixme: see if javascript finished loading...
        try:
            WebDriverWait(self.driver, 3).until(lambda d: False)
        except TimeoutException:
            pass

        message_ids = self._get_all_message_ids()

        raw_urls = [
            self._get_raw_url(thread_url, message_id)
            for message_id in message_ids
        ]

        if self.verbose:
            print 'Obtained %s raw urls.' % len(raw_urls)

        return raw_urls

    def _get_all_message_buttons(self):
        """ Return all the message buttons on the page. """

        timeline = self.driver.find_element_by_id('tm-tl')
        all_buttons = timeline.find_elements_by_class_name(
            'jfk-button-standard'
        )

        return all_buttons

    def _get_all_message_ids(self):
        """ Return all the message ids given a timeline with list of messages.

        """

        all_buttons = self._get_all_message_buttons()
        message_buttons = [
            el for el in all_buttons
            if el.get_attribute('aria-label').startswith('More')
        ]
        message_ids = [
            button.get_attribute('id')[len('b_action_'):]
            for button in message_buttons
        ]

        return message_ids

    def _get_last_post(self):
        """ Get the currently displayed last post. """

        post_list = self._get_post_list()
        last_post = post_list.find_elements_by_class_name('GIURNSTDIQ')[-1]
        # Hack to scroll to the last post
        last_post.location_once_scrolled_into_view

        return last_post

    def _get_state(self):
        """ Return the persisted urls of a post, from a previous run. """

        if exists(self.persistence_file):
            with open(self.persistence_file) as f:
                data = json.load(f)
                for attr in ['raw_urls', 'thread_urls']:
                    setattr(self, attr, data.get(attr, []))

                self._current_thread_index = data.get(
                    'current_thread_index', -1
                )

                self._current_message_index = data.get(
                    'current_message_index', -1
                )

    def _set_state(self):
        """ Save the state to the persistence file. """
        # fixme: persist everything to separate files!
        data = {
            'current_thread_index': self._current_thread_index,
            'current_message_index': self._current_message_index,
            'thread_urls': self.thread_urls,
            'raw_urls': self.raw_urls,
        }

        with open(self.persistence_file, 'w') as f:
            if self.verbose:
                print 'Saving state ...'
            json.dump(data, f, indent=2)

    def _get_post_list(self):
        """ Get the list of posts currently visible in a groups page. """

        return self.driver.find_element_by_class_name('GIURNSTDGBC')

    def _get_raw_url(self, thread_url, message_id):
        """ Return the raw url given the thread_url and the message_id. """

        _, group, thread_id = thread_url.rsplit('/', 2)
        url_fmt = 'https://groups.google.com/forum/message/raw?msg=%s/%s/%s'

        return url_fmt % (group, thread_id, message_id)

    def _get_urls_from_post_list(self, post_list):
        """ Given a post_list element, return the urls of all the posts. """

        print 'Fetching post urls from all the displayed posts ...'
        urls = [
            el.get_attribute('href')
            for el in post_list.find_elements_by_tag_name('a')
        ]

        urls = [
            url for url in urls
            if url and url.startswith('https://groups.google.com/forum/')
        ]

        with open('urls.txt', 'w') as f:
            f.writeline('%s' % '\n'.join(urls))

        return urls

    def _save_content_of_messages(self, url):
        """ Save the content in the raw url provided.

        Persists the message to forum_name/thread_id/message_id.  Return the
        content of the message for convenience.

        """

        import requests
        from urlparse import urlsplit
        from os import makedirs
        from os.path import dirname, sep

        message = requests.get(url).text

        query = urlsplit(url).query
        query = dict([params.split('=') for params in query.split('&')])
        path = query['msg']

        file_path = path.replace('/', sep)
        dir_ = dirname(file_path)

        if not exists(dir_):
            makedirs(dir_)

        with open(file_path, 'w') as f:
            f.write(message.encode('utf8'))

        return message

    def _scroll_to_get_all_posts(self):
        """ Scroll the page until all the posts get displayed.

        Caution: Quite hackish!

        """

        print 'Scrolling until all the posts are visible ...'

        while True:
            if self.verbose:
                print 'scrolling...'

            last_post = self._get_last_post()

            def new_post_fetched(d):
                new_post = self._get_last_post()
                return last_post.text != new_post.text

            try:
                self.wait.until(lambda d: new_post_fetched(d))
            except TimeoutException:
                print 'Found all posts.'
                break

        return self._get_post_list()

if __name__ == "__main__":
    forum_url = 'https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/mumbai-ultimate'
    scraper = GoogleGroupsScraper(forum_url, verbose=True)
    scraper.save_all_posts()

Thanks for doing this. It seems the big evil Google are trying to make things hard for us again by changing the class names:

selenium.common.exceptions.NoSuchElementException: Message: Unable to locate element: {"method":"class name","selector":"GIURNSTDGBC"}

:-(

A better option is to use the RSS interface. See this thread: http://webapps.stackexchange.com/questions/33354/how-do-i-follow-a-google-group-using-an-rss-reader

This script was not working anymore. Could you tell us how to locate the class element and what exactly are you searching for ? I tried searching for a similar name from the page source but I don't know what I was searching for.

@haridsv the problem with RSS is that the description content gets truncated and hence it's not useful.

Thanks for this script. Any suggestions on what class element to use instead of GIURNSTDGBC?