• Read & Understand Pinterest API. ( https://developers.pinterest.com/docs/api/users/?)
• Write a script to specifically ( interest based) auto follow/auto unfollow boards, users and save pins on a daily basis.
• Write a script to automate daily Pinterest Postings. All the content will be given.

if you directly run the script on a fast server using python <script_name> it will seem slow because of the delays introduced in the script.

In a server, wget this install script installdeps.sh it will just install all the required dependencies(some dependencies are not needed, but installed).

$ wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/geekodour/pinterest-dashbot/master/installdeps.sh
$ chmod u+x installdeps.sh
$ ./installdeps.sh

• The script is using my ACCESS_TOKEN, to use it with your account you have to generate a token from here just make sure you give it all 4 scopes.
• The script containing the ACCESS_TOKEN is /src/bot/core.py
• after updating the token with your token
• you can run the scripts by using python3 <script_name> or python <script_name>, (needs python3)
• there are three primary scripts, (save pins script is not here)
  • create_post_from_provided.py
  • follow_users_boards.py
  • unfollow_users_boards.py
• these three scripts need to run as required. running them periodically can done using cronjobs, celery other alternatives, will be using cronjobs for now(discussed later).
• these three scripts use data from src/bot/pintrestBot.json where all configuration is stored.

Here is a sample of a pinterestBot.json file

{
"board": {
  "scrolls": 5,
  "follow": 5,
  "unfollow": 10
},
"pin": {
  "scrolls": 5,
  "save": 5 // no use now
},
"user": {
  "follow": 4,
  "unfollow": 10
},
"periods": {
  "post_to_post_per_day": 2,
  "follow_freq_per_day": 2, // no use now
  "unfollow_freq_per_week": 2 // no use now
},
"posts": [
  {"note":"I am a desc","imageUrl":"http://i.imgur.com/pAiW6Ta.jpg"},
  {"note":"I am a desc","imageUrl":"http://i.imgur.com/oylBqOd.jpg"}
],
"search_terms": [ "happy" ]
}

three fields are of no use as of now, they are commented in the above snippet.

there is another file in the /src/bot/ directory called done_pins.json, it contains a list done imageUrls that are already uploaded. you don't have to update that, create_post_from_provided.py will update and use it to not upload the same image twice. Also, initially the done_pins.json file should look like this, just an empty array.

[]

takes in posts from pinterestBot.json checks with if the imageUrl is in done_pins.json if not then uploads the pin with the given note.

• python3 create_post_from_provided.py
• okay if ran twice a day with periods.posts_to_post_per_day less than 4 (just a guess)

searches pinterest once for each term in the search_terms array in pinterestBot.json then scrolls board.scrolls times and gathers all the boards and their users. Then follows boards and users based on how many users and boards to follow from board.follow and user.follow

• python3 follow_users_boards.py
• okay if ran once a day with 2 or less term elements in search_terms and board.follow and user.follow set to less than 10
• Important note: in pinterest, if you follow a board, you automatically follow the user
• also, scrolls is the number of times the page is scrolled in pinterest infinite scroll pages, the lesser the faster results you'll get

gets all the following boards and users, then unfollows them based on board.unfollow and user.unfollow

• python3 unfollow_users_boards.py
• okay if ran twice a week or something

use crontab -e and put these lines in the bottom, just change the path to where you have kept the script you can change the timings too,

• create_post_from_provided runs at 2:30am and 3:30pm everyday.
• follow_users_boards runs at 5:25am and 5:25pm everyday.
• unfollow_users_boards runs at 1:30am every week on sundays.

30 2,15 * * * python3 /root/pinterest-dashbot/src/bot/create_post_from_provided.py
25 5,17 * * * python3 /root/pinterest-dashbot/src/bot/follow_users_boards.py
30 1 * * 0 python3 /root/pinterest-dashbot/src/bot/unfollow_users_boards.py

The bot needs a few buildpackages in Heroku, buildpackages are just dependencies that you can install from packagemanager in traditional server boxes. the dependencies are:

buildpackages

https://github.com/heroku/heroku-buildpack-apt (apt-get package)
heroku/python (official python)
https://github.com/geekodour/heroku-buildpack-phantomjs (custom phantomjs)

if the heroku app is not already created you can do heroku create, in our case it's already created. so there's a remote link to a heroku git repository, if you cloned this repository there won't be a remote link to heroku, you'll have to explitly set that. to do that do:

git remote add heroku https://git.heroku.com/pinstabot.git

after doing that we can start pushing changes to our heroku app. but before that, we need to put in our buildpackages in place. you can do that https://dashboard.heroku.com/apps/pinstabot/settings page, just click add buildpack and put in the above links one by one. Another way to do the same is from the command line(please do a check on heroku/python, it should work from the command line, it works perfectly from the heroku webapp):

heroku buildpacks:add https://github.com/heroku/heroku-buildpack-apt
heroku buildpacks:add heroku/python
heroku buildpacks:add https://github.com/geekodour/heroku-buildpack-phantomjs

after the buildpacks are added, it's time to push our changes, I've added a file named Aptfile inside /src/bot. Heroku will use that file to install dependencies.

update any changes, for example if you change configurations in /src/bot/pinterestBot.json

type in the following commands from project root

git add -A
git commit -m 'i am commit message'
git push origin master (optional)
git subtree push --prefix src/bot heroku master

The git subtree command puts the src/bot directory as the root directory for your app in heroku, after the last command, the heroku deploy should be successful and there will be an application error shown in the browser if you try to go to the heroku link, this is fine because it's not a webapp/website.

now to run the scripts you can simply do

heroku run python create_post_from_provided.py
heroku run python follow_users_boards.py
heroku run python unfollow_users_boards.py

Now if you want to change the frequency or follow count or something, you can just update the src/bot/pinterestBot.json file accordingly and git push it using the subtree command. To run these three scripts periodically, you can use the herokuscheduler addon that has been already installed on the app, the same commands will work for the scheduler. i.e, these 3 are valid commands for the scheduler, just set the timing as you wish.

python create_post_from_provided.py
python follow_users_boards.py
python unfollow_users_boards.py