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a notebook by steve randy waldman
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2025-10-28 ⇒

# Turn your Bluesky archive into a readable, hostable static site with fossilphant

A couple of years ago, I wrote fossilphant, a utility for converting archives exported from Mastodon accounts into readable, self-hostable static sites. You can see what those look like here or here or here. (I've wandered across three “instances” on Mastodon!)

Now you can turn your Bluesky `repo.car` file into a static site as well. It supports embedded images, links, and quote-tweets too!

1. Install `scala-cli`. It's very easy!

2. Download two scripts, `download-bluesky-images` and `fossilphant-bluesky`. (To be sure you are using the latest version, you can download them directly from github.)

   Make the scripts executable:

       % chmod +x download-bluesky-images
       % chmod +x fossilphant-bluesky

   Try `./download-bluesky-images --help` and `./fossilphant-bluesky --help` to get a sense of the many options you won't need to use.

   Note: The first time you hit these scripts, they will download a bunch of stuff. That will only happen once.

3. Download your `repo.car` file. In Bluesky go to `Settings > Account > Export my data`.

4. Download your images into an images directory:

       % ./download-bluesky-images --repo repo.car --output images

   That may take a minute. When its done, you'll have a lot of images. Check out:

       % ls images

5. Now, build your static site!

       % ./fossilphant-bluesky --handle=interfluidity.com --images=images repo.car

   Note that you have to provide the DNS handle that you use for your Bluesky account. Your archive does not include this, just your AT-proto "did" ("decentralized identifier").

6. You'll find a directory called `public` has now appeared. Open its `index.html` file and behold!

You can take a peek at my archive here. That's it!

← Updated: The 'iffy' XML namespace
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