/Searches

A book containing your Google search entries

Primary LanguagePython

Searches book

Searches is a book made with Google search entries. It’s like a diary you didn’t know you were writing. More info at ishback.com/searches

Create your own Searches book:

Download your search history

  1. Go to https://history.google.com. You’ll need to enter your Google email and password if you’re not logged in yet.
  2. In the ‘Web & App Activity’ section, click on the icon with the three dots on the top right corner, and click ‘Download searches’.
  3. Choose ‘Create archive’. You will receive an email from Google when the archive is ready to download.
  4. Unzip the archive. You should get a folder ‘Searches’ that contains index.html and another folder ‘Searches’

Download DrawBot

The book is generated with DrawBot, a free application for Mac.

  1. To download DrawBot, go to http://www.drawbot.com/content/download.html.

Download the searches.py script

searches.py is a python script that takes your searches and creates a book.

  1. Download searches.py from here:
  2. Place searches.py in the same directory than the folder you unzipped, ‘Searches’ (where the index.html is).

Create the book

  1. Open searches.py with Drawbot. Press ⌘+R to run the script. The book will appear on the left side.
  2. To save the book in PDF, go to File > Export as PDF. You can also print the book directly from DrawBot.

By default, the script will create a book of your 2015 searches. If you wish to create a book for past years, change the year in line 6.