Account migration

[yPhil-gh]

Is there a way to move a video from instance A to instance B, re-encode it on instance B, delete it frome instance A and keep the page views tally count?

[Chocobozzz]

What you're looking for is the account migration feature. It's not implemented sorry.

[Deuchnord]

I would also be interested in a way to migrate user data from an instance to another, as I have planned to open my own instance in the future :slightly_smiling_face:

[FinlayDaG33k]

Has there been any updates on this matter?

[rigelk]

@FinlayDaG33k no update on the matter, no. Otherwise the issue would have been updated accordingly ;)

As for the issue documentation, maybe some interesting read under the viewpoint of backup/restore procedures: https://the-federation.info/specs/backup-restore/

[ghost]

relevant https://www.reddit.com/r/PeerTube/comments/ekmjeb/peertubevideo_one_of_the_largest_instances_is/

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Btw this is how Mastodon is doing Account (Server) Migration https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2019/06/how-to-migrate-from-one-server-to-another/

[rigelk]

Before we tackle any form of automatic account migration, we could implement simple import/export of:

• [ ] actors followed by the user
• [ ] actors blocked by the user
• [ ] settings
• [ ] video channels
• [ ] videos
• [ ] playlists

[trymeouteh]

An account import/export feature would be cool to have which could be made for channels and those who use Peertube to follow, like and comment on videos.

Channels Import/Export

• Videos & Audios
• Video/Audio Like/Dislikes
• Video Comments
• Channel Subscribers
• Chanel Playlists
• Settings

Users

• Subscriptions
• Like/Dislikes
• Comments
• Playlists
• Settings

[trymeouteh]

I made this suggestion for channels on how Peertube could implement a automatic cloud storage backup system for channels. https://github.com/Chocobozzz/PeerTube/issues/3082

[seniorm0ment]

Came here to suggest this, this would be really nice to have implemented. The lack of easy account migration with federated software is a big con imo. I can't say I'm very worried about likes and stuff, but at minimum a built in way to simply go onto an instance as a user, say I want to migrate to this instance login as the new user, transfer the videos with all the metadata automatically, as well as my user favorites and stuff, would be amazing.

This would especially make it easier if you're on somebody elses instance, and you eventually want to migrate to your own, you can with ease. Otherwise you'd have to download each video (or upload from local) manually, reupload and retag all the metadata for each video. For large channels this is insane and very time consuming.

As others suggest, I would be all for an account export and import feature, however I very much would like to see account migration ability as well.

[othello777]

hmm, this is one of the things preventing me from jumping in right now. I feel like I have to choose the correct instance before uploading my videos because it would be a lot of work to move them manually

[Altonss]

Hello dear developers/community, First of all thank you for this amazing piece of software! I saw that the roadmap for 2022 (and a peertube v5) has been published. Would it be possible to add this issue to the roadmap? I think that this issue is a key feature for users, to be able to export/import their data to migrate to another instance. Because of the decentralised nature of peertube, this feature is necessary. In fact some instances can shut down and users have to migrate somewhere else.

[Chocobozzz]

Hello,

We planned to work on basic account export, but we aren't sure to have time to also develop basic account import. But it's something on which we would like to move forward

[Altonss]

We planned to work on basic account export, but we aren't sure to have time to also develop basic account import. But it's something on which we would like to move forward

That's great! Even just a basic export function would be a great improvement :)

[frankenstein91]

I need it very much now https://blog.nikisoft.one/note/d845dd225afa7a59

[Esn024]

I strongly agree that this is an important feature. I stated my reasons on your forum 3 years ago:

After all, the problem with Youtube isn’t so much that one can get banned, the problem is that moving one’s entire channel somewhere else can take many days of boring repetitive work, and the more videos you’ve done, the longer it takes, to the point where it becomes easier to just say “fine, I’ll let them censor me however they like” or “if I move I might just have to do it all again, maybe I should just stop making videos altogether”.

I just want to add that the "exit" vs "voice" framework is a good way to think of the underlying dynamics:

members of an organization, whether a business, a nation or any other form of human grouping, have essentially two possible responses when they perceive that the organization is demonstrating a decrease in quality or benefit to the member: they can exit (withdraw from the relationship); or, they can voice (attempt to repair or improve the relationship through communication of the complaint, grievance or proposal for change)

At the moment, the hosts have ALL the power of "voice" (in both YouTube and PeerTube) - in fact, PeerTube hosts have even more power of "voice" than YouTube, because YouTube is bigger and can sometimes be embarrassed by negative press. The only power that video creators have is thus "exit", but they have less and less "exit" power the more videos they make (because with the lack of an easy migration feature, the costs of "exit" increase more and more with every video).

Imagine how the internet would have developed if website owners were tied to the same hosting company they started with, and were unable to easily back up their files or migrate hosts... the way I see the federated space developing now, it seems like a bit of a miracle that website hosting developed in such an open, people-friendly way!

[S7venLights]

I agree with all the reasons posted above and especially the previous 'exit power' argument.

But my main reason for wanting a export/migration/backup option is because I had a portfolio channel on an instance that just disappeared without warning and it took days of work to get everything back uploaded to a new instance. I want to be able to have a local backup file that can be updated every time I upload a new video. If there was a way of backing up and perhaps keeping followers that would be great.

[McSinyx]

If the source instance is offline then there's no way to verify the connection between the source and target channels to notify the followers.

[S7venLights]

everything I found on this topic:

https://github.com/Chocobozzz/PeerTube/issues/549 https://github.com/Chocobozzz/PeerTube/issues/3764 https://the-federation.info/specs/backup-restore/

https://docs.joinpeertube.org/maintain-migration https://docs.joinpeertube.org/maintain-tools?id=create-move-video-storage-jobjs

There is the 'Transfer ownership' feature which could help as discussed here but that doesn't help when a instance closes without warning. We still need a local backup/export option for that.

[S7venLights]

Dammit! 3rd time I've lost a channel to PeerTube instances dying without warning and this one had hours of work!😾

https://www.orion-hub.fr/ "Due to a suspension of our dedicated server by our provider for Spam Emails, reported by UCEPROTECT and caused by our Mastodon instance, we are no longer able to offer you our PeerTube instance Orion-Hub.fr...

We are sorry for the inconvenience this causes, thank you for your understanding."

They claimed they had good funds and would keep it active always too!

PeerTube needs account migration Or some solution https://github.com/Chocobozzz/PeerTube/issues/5783

[Chocobozzz]

Hi,

We plan to work on account import/export first, after PeerTube v6 scheduled for the end of 2023. Then we'll be able to continue this work to provide account migration.

[jayrope]

It seems akward, that strongly wanted features, account migration and instance migration, are laying dormant since May 2018. No particular pun intended, but user interest is pretty clear. What's in the way of working on this for so long? The longer this is postponed, the more difficult it gets to incorporat this into the overall development of Peertube.

[Chocobozzz]

We already prioritize features according to user interest: https://joinpeertube.org/news/roadmap-v6

Account migration is a very big feature that will need several months of work. We can't just add it to an existing roadmap where other features like chapters or replacing an existing video file is also highly requested.

Remember that PeerTube is a free software, developed and maintained for free by only 1 developer (not full time): https://joinpeertube.org/faq#peertube-does-not-contain-all-the-tools-i-need-to-manage-my-platform

[FitikWasTaken]

I would love to see this feature, but i can understand that it's something pretty hard to implement.

[Chocobozzz]

We plan to implement export/import feature in 2024 (not a migration tool yet, but a first step). Read the detailed blog post on https://joinpeertube.org/news/peertube-future-2024

[Chocobozzz]

Export/import has been implemented in PeerTube 6.1: https://joinpeertube.org/news/release-6.1