Substack2Markdown is a Python tool for downloading free and premium Substack posts and saving them as both Markdown and HTML files. It will save paid for content as long as you're subscribed to that substack. Most "save for later" apps (such as Pocket) don't save these posts, but with this script you can now browse and sort through these posts in a user-friendly HTML interface.
Once you run the script, it will create a folder named after the substack in /substack_md_files
,
and then begin to scrape the substack URL, converting the blog posts into markdown files. Once all the posts have been
saved, it will generate an HTML file in /substack_html_pages
directory that allows you to browse the posts.
You can either hardcode the substack URL and the number of posts you'd like to save into the top of the file, or specify them as command line arguments.
- Converts Substack posts into Markdown files.
- Generates an HTML file to browse Markdown files.
- Supports free and premium content (with subscription).
- The HTML interface allows sorting essays by date or likes.
Clone the repo and install the dependencies:
git clone https://github.com/yourusername/substack_scraper.git
cd substack_scraper
# # Optinally create a virtual environment
# python -m venv venv
# # Activate the virtual environment
# .\venv\Scripts\activate # Windows
# source venv/bin/activate # Linux
pip install -r requirements.txt
For the premium scraper, update the config.py
in the root directory with your Substack email and password:
EMAIL = "your-email@domain.com"
PASSWORD = "your-password"
You'll also need Microsoft Edge installed for the Selenium webdriver.
Specify the Substack URL and the directory to save the posts to:
You can hardcode your desired Substack URL and the number of posts you'd like to save into the top of the file and run:
python substack_scraper.py
For free Substack sites:
python substack_scraper.py --url https://example.substack.com --directory /path/to/save/posts
For premium Substack sites:
python substack_scraper.py --url https://example.substack.com --directory /path/to/save/posts --premium
To scrape a specific number of posts:
python substack_scraper.py --url https://example.substack.com --directory /path/to/save/posts --number 5
To read the Markdown files in your browser, install the Markdown Viewer browser extension. But note, we also save the files as HTML for easy viewing, just set the toggle to HTML on the author homepage.