Dimage

Downloads all media assets from JSON files generated by DiscordChatExporter.

⚙️ Features

• Parses .json export files from DiscordChatExporter.
• Downloads guild icons, user avatars, mention avatars, reaction avatars, custom emojis (inline and in reactions), and message attachments.
• Organizes downloaded media into subdirectories named after the source channel or DM.
• Optionally categorizes media into folders (icons, avatars, emojis, channels) using a command-line flag.
• Sets local file modification timestamps to match the original Discord message timestamps.
• Skips duplicate URLs to avoid redundant downloads and improve performance.
• Offers fine-grained control over which asset types to download via command-line flags.
• Supports skipping downloads based on file extensions.
• Includes a mode to set timestamps on existing files without downloading.

⚠️ Disclaimers

• Default File Extension: If a file extension cannot be determined from the URL, the tool defaults to .png for icons, avatars, and standard emojis. Animated emojis default to .gif.
• Timestamp-Only Mode: The --timestamp-only mode assumes the file structure and naming have not been altered since the initial download. It relies on a processing order that may be unstable if files have been moved, renamed, or deleted. Use this feature only to refresh timestamps on an unmodified collection of downloaded files.
• Testing: This software is tested manually. Automated testing of download functionality is not feasible because Discord media links expire after 24 hours.

🚀 Installation

From PyPI

pip install dimage

With pipx

pipx install dimage

With Conda

conda create -n dimage python=3.9 -y
conda activate dimage
pip install dimage

From Source

git clone https://github.com/Inc44/Dimage.git
cd Dimage

To install the package:

pip install .

To install only the dependencies:

pip install -r requirements.txt

If you install only the dependencies, run the program using python -m dimage.cli (or python -OO dimage/cli.py) instead of the dimage command.

🛠️ Build from Source

pip install build
python -m build

📦 Publish

pip install twine
twine upload dist/*

📖 Usage Examples

Standard Download

Download all media, skipping duplicates and SVG files. Media will be organized into folders named after each channel. Assumes your JSON files are in a directory named json.

dimage --no-dupes --skip svg

Organized Download

Download all media, skipping duplicates and SVG files. Media will be organized by type (icons, avatars, emojis, channels).

dimage --no-dupes --skip svg --organize

Update Timestamps Only

Apply original timestamps to already downloaded files. Assumes files are in an organized structure. No new files will be downloaded. Displays info and warnings.

dimage --no-dupes --skip svg --timestamp-only --organize --loglevel info

Attachments Only

Download only message attachments, skipping all other media types, duplicates, and SVG files.

dimage --no-guild-icon --no-avatars --no-mentions --no-reactions --no-reactions-emojis --no-inline-emojis --no-dupes --skip svg

I prefer to skip SVG files, as in 99.99% of cases, they are just standard Discord emojis.

🎨 Command-Line Arguments

Argument	Description
-i, --input <path>	Path to the input directory containing .json files. Default: json.
-o, --output <path>	Path to the root output directory for downloads. Default: downloads.
--no-guild-icon	Skip downloading the guild/server icon.
--no-avatars	Skip downloading message author avatars.
--no-mentions	Skip downloading avatars of mentioned users.
--no-reactions	Skip downloading avatars of users who reacted.
--no-reactions-emojis	Skip downloading custom emojis used in reactions.
--no-inline-emojis	Skip downloading custom emojis used inline in messages.
--no-attachments	Skip downloading message attachments.
--no-dupes	Avoid downloading duplicate files based on URL.
--skip <exts>	Skip files with specified comma-separated extensions.
--timestamp-only	Set timestamps on existing files without downloading.
--organize	Organize files into categories: icons, avatars, emojis, and channels (for attachments).
--loglevel <level>	Set the logging level (NOTSET, DEBUG, INFO, WARNING, ERROR, CRITICAL). Default: ERROR.

🎯 Motivation

DiscordChatExporter supports only message exporting. Discord media links expire after 24 hours, making media preservation with exported JSON impossible. So, in February 2025, I decided to create the original version of this tool to download all media assets from exported JSON files before links expire, enabling message importing with Dimport.

🐛 Bugs

Not yet found.

⛔ Known Limitations

Not yet known.

🚧 TODO

• Refactor for Concurrency: Re-architect the download logic using asyncio and aiohttp to replace the current sequential, blocking requests implementation. This will significantly improve performance.
• Implement Persistent Cache: Replace the in-memory visited_urls set with a persistent on-disk cache (e.g., a simple database or a state file). This will allow the application to be stopped and resumed, prevent redundant downloads, and enable recovery from interruptions.
• Add Robust Retry Logic: Integrate a library such as tenacity or retrying into the download function to automatically handle transient network errors, timeouts, and HTTP 429 (Too Many Requests) status codes with exponential backoff.
• Establish Formal Testing: Develop a formal test suite using pytest. Implement mocking for network requests to test application logic without relying on expiring Discord URLs. Add coverage to measure test effectiveness and identify untested code paths.

🙏 Thanks

Creators of:

• Python
• Requests
• tqdm
• python-dateutil

🤝 Contribution

Contributions, suggestions, and new ideas are heartily welcomed. If you're considering significant modifications, please initiate an issue for discussion before submitting a pull request.

📜 License

This project is licensed under the MIT License. See the LICENSE file for details.

💖 Support