FediFetcher can now backfill any user mentioned in your notifications

Since the introduction of FediFetcher, my Mastodon experience has been much more enjoyable, as I've seen far fewer empty profiles, or missed replies. But one thing still bothered me: When someone I didn't follow favourited a post of mine, or commented on it, I might often want to check out their profile to get to know them a bit. But more often than not that profile would be empty.

That is now a thing of the past: Since v4.1.6, FediFetcher can backfill profiles of anyone mentioned in your notifications.

How can I backfill accounts from notifications?

Firstly, if you are not running v4.1.6 yet, update your fork / clone. Afterwards, you can supply the FROM_NOTIFICATIONS=1 environment variable (if you are running FediFetcher as a GitHub Action), or the --from-notifications=1 argument (if you are running FediFetcher locally, or as a container).

Don't forget to add the read:notifications scope to your access token (and regenerating it), if it isn't already included.

If you are currently using the option to backfill new followers' / follow requests' accounts, I recommend turning this option off, as there will be overlap between the two (unless you turned off notifications for new followers / follow requests, of course).

Will FediFetcher fetch the same user user's profiles over and over again?

No. FediFetcher tries to be reasonably efficient in how it backfills user profiles, to avoid re-fetching the same profile over and over again, if a user interacts a lot with you: By default it'll re-fetch the same account at most once per week. This can be configured using the REMEMBER_USERS_FOR_HOURS / --remember-users-for-hours option though.

Additionally, if used together with MAX_FOLLOWINGS / --max-followings FediFetcher will never re-fetch profiles of accounts you follow, as it assumes that Mastodon will do this for you.

What else is new in v4.1.6?

• I've deprecated the USER / --user option: Previously, that was how you'd specify which user's followers/followings FediFetcher would backfill. FediFetcher will now backfill followers/follow requests of the API key owner, by default. For now, you can still provide the USER / --user option to override this, but that will eventually go away.
• I've changed the logic with which FediFetcher decides which accounts to re-fetch when backfilling profiles, to be more useful in backfill accounts that you aren't following.
• I have added a recommended / quick start configuration to the README. There are now so many options - some of which partially overlap each other - that it could easily become overwhelming, so I've now options I'd recommend to get started with.
• I have added a sample script for running FediFetcher as a cronjob