Note: In an earlier version of this post there were two examples showing how to backup pinboard bookmarks from the command-line. Since then, something at pinboard has changed and those scripts no longer work. I wasn’t able to get the curl version up and running again quickly, so I’m removing it and updating the Powershell script, which does work as of this writing. This version creates an XML file whereas the original created a legacy Netscape html file .
You can find instructions on backing up (or exporting) your pinboard bookmarks in the howto section on pinboard’s site. However, if you want an automated backup, you’ll need a command or script that you can run from the windows task scheduler. Here are a couple of options.
This is a stripped-down Powershell script to backup pinboard bookmarks on Windows. (I tested this on windows 7 after first creating a directory for Pinboard under my documents directory.)
$dir = 'c:\users\yourname\documents\pinboard\'
$source = 'https://api.pinboard.in/v1/posts/all'
$outf = 'pinboard.xml'
$username = 'yourname'
$password = 'yourpassword'
$wc = New-Object System.Net.WebClient
$wc.credentials = New-Object System.Net.NetworkCredential -ArgumentList $username, $password
cd $dir
try
{
$content = $wc.DownloadString($source)
echo $content > $outf
}
catch [System.Net.WebException]
{
echo "An Error occurred "
echo $_.Exception.ToString()
}
To run this script, type something like the following at a command prompt (depending on where you put your script file) or schedule it to occur daily using the windows task scheduler.
powershell "& 'c:\users\yourname\documents\pinboard\pinboard.ps1' "
If your bookmarks are really important to you, you’ll probably want a more robust solution. I’ve left out some issues to keep the scripts focused on the basic task of downloading the bookmark file. A more complete solution would include encryption of your password, error reporting, and multiple versions of your bookmark file.
This method will not backup your tweets on pinboard. Also, it will only backup links to your notes, not the note contents.