[GET] Scrape All Blinkist Contents Using Python FOR FREE

buggysite

Active member
Jun 30, 2020
167
89
28
localhost
For any of you who likes the contents that Blinkist offers in their app or site, you can use a Python script to scrape all of the contents locally.
We all know might know that Blinkist's subscription fee is not cheap. Even if they offer a free trial period, some of us who don't have credit card will face trouble. Or, even if we have a free trial period, we might barely read all of the contents during this period.

To read all of the contents later, we can scrape and save them locally using a Python script:


Pre-requisites:
- Install the latest version of Google Chrome (and make sure to install it in the default location/don't change the installation location)
- If there's a problme with ChromeDriver later when following this tutorial, install ChromeDriver that matches with your Chrome's version here: https://chromedriver.chromium.org/.
Then put the .exe file into the same location as chrome.exe
- Don't close CMD after you're completely done

1. Install the latest version of Python.
Here's a handy tutorial videos to watch:
Windows 10:
Mac:
Linux:
2. Download the latest version of Blinkist Scraper
3. Extract the .zip files of the script to another folder and remember the folder's path, e.g.: C:\Users\HP\Blinkist
4. Open Command Prompt and type cd C:\Users\HP\Blinkist then Enter
Note: Change C:\Users\HP\Blinkist into the actual path
5. Once done, then type pip install -r requirements.txt and click Enter, then wait till all of the required modules installed.
6. After all modules installed, then type this command: python blinkistscraper email password
Email and password are the ones that you have right now. If you don't have a Blinkist account, you can get from this thread: https://babiato.tech/threads/get-blinkist-premium-free-for-30-days.41452/ Thanks to @Deepansh
So you can use this command instead while the account still active: python blinkistscraper [email protected] Qwerty#115#
7. If there's an error, it's probably because some of the required modules are failed to install.
For example, if selenium is missing, you can go to this site: https://pypi.org/ and search for selenium. It should contains a line of command like this:
pip install selenium
Copy-paste then Enter in the CMD window. Keep doing this until all required modules installed, then retry step #6.
8. The script will open a Chrome with uBlock Origin extension active. Don't worry, it's just a default process from the script.
You'll need to pass the Blinkist's site captcha. If it's failed to load, try to deactivate uBlock Origin while the site loading or use a free VPN, then refresh the site. Or just keep waiting until you finally logged in and the scraper runs normally like the following screenshot: https://prnt.sc/110m0zt
9. The scraped books will be available in the books folder inside the script's folder (e.g. C:\Users\HP\Blinkist\books), categorized by each genre. There will be two formats: .html and .epub. For me, I prefer the .html format to read it on browser (just drag and drop the .html file to the browser). You can also save the .epub format to read on your Android/iOS device.

You can convert the scraped books into .pdf format, or you can also scrape the audiobooks. Read the documentation here: https://github.com/leoncvlt/blinkist-scraper

Script's copyright: leoncvlt on Github

Give 👍 if you find out that this thread is useful.
 

buggysite

Active member
Jun 30, 2020
167
89
28
localhost
Try to update selenium script to the latest version.
Also, it'd take some time, but you need to repeat the process until the script can bypass the captcha.
 

WhiteFluffyPuppy

Well-known member
Babiato Lover
Sep 18, 2020
357
287
63
Planet Babiato
Try to update selenium script to the latest version.
Also, it'd take some time, but you need to repeat the process until the script can bypass the captcha.
For any of you who likes the contents that Blinkist offers in their app or site, you can use a Python script to scrape all of the contents locally.
We all know might know that Blinkist's subscription fee is not cheap. Even if they offer a free trial period, some of us who don't have credit card will face trouble. Or, even if we have a free trial period, we might barely read all of the contents during this period.

To read all of the contents later, we can scrape and save them locally using a Python script:


Pre-requisites:
- Install the latest version of Google Chrome (and make sure to install it in the default location/don't change the installation location)
- If there's a problme with ChromeDriver later when following this tutorial, install ChromeDriver that matches with your Chrome's version here: https://chromedriver.chromium.org/.
Then put the .exe file into the same location as chrome.exe
- Don't close CMD after you're completely done

1. Install the latest version of Python.
Here's a handy tutorial videos to watch:
Windows 10:
Mac:
Linux:
2. Download the latest version of Blinkist Scraper
3. Extract the .zip files of the script to another folder and remember the folder's path, e.g.: C:\Users\HP\Blinkist
4. Open Command Prompt and type cd C:\Users\HP\Blinkist then Enter
Note: Change C:\Users\HP\Blinkist into the actual path
5. Once done, then type pip install -r requirements.txt and click Enter, then wait till all of the required modules installed.
6. After all modules installed, then type this command: python blinkistscraper email password
Email and password are the ones that you have right now. If you don't have a Blinkist account, you can get from this thread: https://babiato.tech/threads/get-blinkist-premium-free-for-30-days.41452/ Thanks to @Deepansh
So you can use this command instead while the account still active: python blinkistscraper [email protected] Qwerty#115#
7. If there's an error, it's probably because some of the required modules are failed to install.
For example, if selenium is missing, you can go to this site: https://pypi.org/ and search for selenium. It should contains a line of command like this:
pip install selenium
Copy-paste then Enter in the CMD window. Keep doing this until all required modules installed, then retry step #6.
8. The script will open a Chrome with uBlock Origin extension active. Don't worry, it's just a default process from the script.
You'll need to pass the Blinkist's site captcha. If it's failed to load, try to deactivate uBlock Origin while the site loading or use a free VPN, then refresh the site. Or just keep waiting until you finally logged in and the scraper runs normally like the following screenshot: https://prnt.sc/110m0zt
9. The scraped books will be available in the books folder inside the script's folder (e.g. C:\Users\HP\Blinkist\books), categorized by each genre. There will be two formats: .html and .epub. For me, I prefer the .html format to read it on browser (just drag and drop the .html file to the browser). You can also save the .epub format to read on your Android/iOS device.

You can convert the scraped books into .pdf format, or you can also scrape the audiobooks. Read the documentation here: https://github.com/leoncvlt/blinkist-scraper

Script's copyright: leoncvlt on Github

Give 👍 if you find out that this thread is useful.
Does this still work, please?
 

buggysite

Active member
Jun 30, 2020
167
89
28
localhost
It's 100% work for me.
All you have to do is get a free trial account of Blinkist premium.
Then just follow the above tutorials.
 

brass9

Member
Apr 25, 2021
35
22
8
I have developed my own Python scraper for blinkist and a host of other mini book summary sites. Up until few months ago they used to be directly accessible via some backdoor API endpoints...

I had a premium blinkist subscription which ended last month, and wanted to scrape the entire site before expiration for my personal perusal. Lo & behold, they had removed those APIs, and put the entire site behind cloudflare firewall.

Never mind, we haxxors know how to bypass those pesky stuffs. Took me a few short hours to circumvent the CF-ray protecitons... in the end it was worth it, because I can now scrape any site behind CF...

I used just plain lxml, BeautfifulSoup & requests... no Scrapy or any fancy schmancy scraping framework for me. :)

PS - I took a quick look at the code, and it's quite impressive & robust. Mine was a late-night quick-n-dirty set of scripts, this guy's code takes it to a whole different level (PDF / HTML output etc...)...
 

mrkikoloko

New member
Oct 30, 2020
11
9
3
I have developed my own Python scraper for blinkist and a host of other mini book summary sites. Up until few months ago they used to be directly accessible via some backdoor API endpoints...

I had a premium blinkist subscription which ended last month, and wanted to scrape the entire site before expiration for my personal perusal. Lo & behold, they had removed those APIs, and put the entire site behind cloudflare firewall.

Never mind, we haxxors know how to bypass those pesky stuffs. Took me a few short hours to circumvent the CF-ray protecitons... in the end it was worth it, because I can now scrape any site behind CF...

I used just plain lxml, BeautfifulSoup & requests... no Scrapy or any fancy schmancy scraping framework for me. :)

PS - I took a quick look at the code, and it's quite impressive & robust. Mine was a late-night quick-n-dirty set of scripts, this guy's code takes it to a whole different level (PDF / HTML output etc...)...
And will share ?
 

zakijaffar

New member
Sep 4, 2022
3
0
1
Can you share?

I have developed my own Python scraper for blinkist and a host of other mini book summary sites. Up until few months ago they used to be directly accessible via some backdoor API endpoints...

I had a premium blinkist subscription which ended last month, and wanted to scrape the entire site before expiration for my personal perusal. Lo & behold, they had removed those APIs, and put the entire site behind cloudflare firewall.

Never mind, we haxxors know how to bypass those pesky stuffs. Took me a few short hours to circumvent the CF-ray protecitons... in the end it was worth it, because I can now scrape any site behind CF...

I used just plain lxml, BeautfifulSoup & requests... no Scrapy or any fancy schmancy scraping framework for me. :)

PS - I took a quick look at the code, and it's quite impressive & robust. Mine was a late-night quick-n-dirty set of scripts, this guy's code takes it to a whole different level (PDF / HTML output etc...)...
 

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