Sync Twitter Following to a List

I mostly use Twitter as a source of information (to some degree), but I don’t want to be checking Twitter all the time. I usually batch my consumption while keeping track of the timeline position (via the app I use). I don’t produce content on Twitter (I just never really got into that aspect of it).

I was using Tweetbot and out of nowhere it just stopped working… Turns out Twitter suspended access to 3rd party clients – which killed Tweetbot (and many other clients).

This become the forcing function to try Readwise’s Reader as my primary way to consume Twitter.

Readwise Reader

I’ve recently adopted Reader to help facilitate my consumption of information. It’s really a delightful all-in-one application that allows me to collect/filter/consume/highlight content. Reader highlights are instantly sync to Readwise (referral link) at no cost as it is bundled into the tool.

With the change in Twitter, I decided to embrace Reader’s ability to provide daily summaries of tweets from a Twitter List.

Twitter List of Followings

Due to how Reader’s Twitter daily summaries work, I need a public Twitter List of people I’m following. I went about this by throwing together a quick script to do synchronize my following to a list using Twitter’s API.

const { TwitterApi } = require("twitter-api-v2");

const TARGET_LIST_ID = "xxxxxxx"
const MY_USER_ID = "xxxxxxx"

const client = new TwitterApi({
  appKey: "xxxxxxx",
  appSecret: "xxxxxxx",
  accessToken: "xxxxxxx",
  accessSecret: "xxxxxxx",
});

async function sync() {
  // Fetch all users I follow
  const myFollowings = await (await client.v2.following(MY_USER_ID, { asPaginator: true })).fetchLast();
  const userIdsFollowing = myFollowings.users.map(user => user.id);

  // Fetch all users in specified list
  const membersOfList = await (await client.v2.listMembers(TARGET_LIST_ID)).fetchLast();
  const userIdsInList = membersOfList.users.map(user => user.id);

  // Get users I follow that are not on the list
  const usersToFollow = userIdsFollowing.filter(id => !userIdsInList.includes(id));

  // Get users in the list that I don't follow anymore
  const usersToUnfollow = userIdsInList.filter(id => !userIdsFollowing.includes(id));

  // Set the list to private (avoid notifying users of being added/removed)
  await client.v2.updateList(TARGET_LIST_ID, { private: true });

  // Add new users to list
  for (const userId of [...new Set(usersToFollow)]) {
    console.log(`Adding ${userId} to list`);
    await client.v2.addListMember(TARGET_LIST_ID, userId);
  }

  // Remove users from the list I don't follow anymore
  for (const userId of [...new Set(usersToUnfollow)]) {
    console.log(`Removing ${userId} to list`);
    await client.v2.removeListMember(TARGET_LIST_ID, userId);
  }

  // Set the list back to public
  await client.v2.updateList(TARGET_LIST_ID, { private: false });
}

await sync()

Nothing too special with the above – I’ve commented the code. The .fetchLast() should paginate automatically and grab all members (no guarantees what happens if you have a large following count). I also set the list to private before adding/removing users to avoid notifying them of changes.

When I run this script all users I’m following are synced to the list (adding/removing based on differences). I don’t have to manage the list at all!

Automating the Sync

The final step in making this syncing automatic. If following/removing someone on Twitter, it should be reflected on that list without any extra effort on my part.

I decided to use Pipedream and scheduled the execution of this script every hour. Pipedream makes this painless, and the free plan is plenty for me. The great thing is that I don’t have to worry about it anymore.