Beginning Nov 1, 2019, the free version of the diary will only save data for last two years

13

Replies

  • Machka9
    Machka9 Posts: 25,693 Member
    Machka9 wrote: »
    How do I export the exercise data?

    Don't care about the food data ... I've been eating the same stuff for 4.5 years now. But I do care about the exercise data.

    That one I haven't figured out. There are better trackers for keeping those stats, though -- so this might be a good time to jump over to Runkeeper, which gives a lot of features for free. (It's owned by Asics now, which I don't love, but at least Asics hasn't messed up all of the good features.)

    If you can manually see each day's exercise data in your diary, it'll be a giant time suck, but you could manually then enter them into Runkeeper and postdate each entry.

    My Fitness Pal is only one of many ways I keep track of my exercise ... but I'd still like the MFP data. :)
  • threewins
    threewins Posts: 1,455 Member
    I have a question for those who have data older than 2 years and aren't paying the monthly fee. Can you view your data right now, without exporting?
  • Machka9
    Machka9 Posts: 25,693 Member
    threewins wrote: »
    I have a question for those who have data older than 2 years and aren't paying the monthly fee. Can you view your data right now, without exporting?

    Yes.
  • threewins
    threewins Posts: 1,455 Member
    Thanks. Can't someone write a script and convert the html files into data? I know that's hard, but assuming a person has the necessary skills, is there anything stopping it?
  • Machka9
    Machka9 Posts: 25,693 Member
    Machka9 wrote: »
    Machka9 wrote: »
    How do I export the exercise data?

    Don't care about the food data ... I've been eating the same stuff for 4.5 years now. But I do care about the exercise data.

    That one I haven't figured out. There are better trackers for keeping those stats, though -- so this might be a good time to jump over to Runkeeper, which gives a lot of features for free. (It's owned by Asics now, which I don't love, but at least Asics hasn't messed up all of the good features.)

    If you can manually see each day's exercise data in your diary, it'll be a giant time suck, but you could manually then enter them into Runkeeper and postdate each entry.

    My Fitness Pal is only one of many ways I keep track of my exercise ... but I'd still like the MFP data. :)

    Got it.
  • PAV8888
    PAV8888 Posts: 14,307 Member
    Machka9 wrote: »
    threewins wrote: »
    I have a question for those who have data older than 2 years and aren't paying the monthly fee. Can you view your data right now, without exporting?
    Yes.

    Yes, but only a few days at a time.

    This is by contrast to how things were till about 2017, when you could, presumably, look back at unlimited number of years at a time, though the most I can personally attest to is three,

    Sometime in 2017, I believe, this changed to a year at a time. And a few months later, at least for me, it changed to a variable amount of days numbering around 40.
  • Machka9
    Machka9 Posts: 25,693 Member
    PAV8888 wrote: »
    Machka9 wrote: »
    threewins wrote: »
    I have a question for those who have data older than 2 years and aren't paying the monthly fee. Can you view your data right now, without exporting?
    Yes.

    Yes, but only a few days at a time.

    This is by contrast to how things were till about 2017, when you could, presumably, look back at unlimited number of years at a time, though the most I can personally attest to is three,

    Sometime in 2017, I believe, this changed to a year at a time. And a few months later, at least for me, it changed to a variable amount of days numbering around 40.

    I can see 365 days at a time and I've successfully downloaded all my info since I started on Feb 2015. :)
  • threewins
    threewins Posts: 1,455 Member
    It would seem to me that without the skills to scrape the data, videoing the screen or using a screen video program would be the best option to retrieve the data, without paying $10.
  • Machka9
    Machka9 Posts: 25,693 Member
    threewins wrote: »
    It would seem to me that without the skills to scrape the data, videoing the screen or using a screen video program would be the best option to retrieve the data, without paying $10.

    Took me a few minutes, and no videos, and I've got my info without paying $10. :)
  • lynn_glenmont
    lynn_glenmont Posts: 10,097 Member
    threewins wrote: »
    I have a question for those who have data older than 2 years and aren't paying the monthly fee. Can you view your data right now, without exporting?

    Yes, although I can't see all six-plus years at once, but if I choose a limited date range (seems to be something under two months) I can go all the way back to the beginning.
  • lynn_glenmont
    lynn_glenmont Posts: 10,097 Member
    Machka9 wrote: »
    threewins wrote: »
    It would seem to me that without the skills to scrape the data, videoing the screen or using a screen video program would be the best option to retrieve the data, without paying $10.

    Took me a few minutes, and no videos, and I've got my info without paying $10. :)

    I don't suppose you'd care to share?
  • PAV8888
    PAV8888 Posts: 14,307 Member
    Machka9 wrote: »
    I can see 365 days at a time and I've successfully downloaded all my info since I started on Feb 2015. :)

    14 days... 'cause I complain too much? --obviously!
  • NorthCascades
    NorthCascades Posts: 10,968 Member
    threewins wrote: »
    Thanks. Can't someone write a script and convert the html files into data? I know that's hard, but assuming a person has the necessary skills, is there anything stopping it?

    Probably. They might have a limit to how much data they'll serve up to prevent scraping. They might use AJAX which wouldn't be impossible to scrape, but much more difficult. I'm on the app right now so I can't check how the HTML is structured.

    Most things like this aren't impossible, the question is how much effort it will take, and maybe how accurate it will be. As a dev, if I really wanted the old data it would make a lot more sense to pay for a month of service than to write a custom scraper.
  • NorthCascades
    NorthCascades Posts: 10,968 Member
    threewins wrote: »
    Thanks. Can't someone write a script and convert the html files into data? I know that's hard, but assuming a person has the necessary skills, is there anything stopping it?

    Ok, I remembered my password, signed in through a browser, and had a look. It's actually pretty straightforward. You can request a date by uri, and all the data is in a table with an ID. Exercise would have to be scraped separately, probably less important as most people have a better exercise diary elsewhere.
  • NorthCascades
    NorthCascades Posts: 10,968 Member
    threewins wrote: »
    Thanks. Can't someone write a script and convert the html files into data? I know that's hard, but assuming a person has the necessary skills, is there anything stopping it?

    They do, in fact, hide the data behind AJAX. If you make a request for the food diary for a specific date, all you really get back is some very complicated JavaScript.

    But if you use the embedded web browser control in .net, it will (1) save a cookie so that once you log in, you stay logged in, and (2) execute all that JS and render it into HTML.

    So, it is in fact doable without a tremendous amount of effort. At least on a Windows system, I don't know enough about other platforms to say.
  • PAV8888
    PAV8888 Posts: 14,307 Member
    Small correction to the above to indicate that my comparison costs are closer to $7.5 for one year of Google photos and $0.006 (half a cent) for MFP. MFP math was a decimal off, plus max utilization is closer to 12.5% than 17.5% due to snapshots :blush:
  • PAV8888
    PAV8888 Posts: 14,307 Member
    AFAIK, the food diary is going to be affected, not the exercise diary.
  • Machka9
    Machka9 Posts: 25,693 Member
    PAV8888 wrote: »
    AFAIK, the food diary is going to be affected, not the exercise diary.

    As you can see ... my instructions above allow a user to save food, exercise, or both. :)
  • PAV8888
    PAV8888 Posts: 14,307 Member
    edited October 2019
    While it's used to be the case that people could follow your instructions and select to view their food diaries 365 days at a time, this stopped working the past couple of years. For me it will only display 14 days at a time.
  • Machka9
    Machka9 Posts: 25,693 Member
    edited October 2019
    PAV8888 wrote: »
    While it's used to be the case that people could follow your instructions and select to view their food diaries 365 days at a time, this stopped working the past couple of years. For me it will only display 14 days at a time.

    It's still working very well for me! The images I posted were captured today.



    And, although it's not 365 days, you can also get your exercise summary for the past 90 days. Much more than just 14 days there ...

    s9ywfx1tgqfl.png
  • kshama2001
    kshama2001 Posts: 28,052 Member
    edited October 2019
    Machka9 wrote: »
    Machka9 wrote: »
    threewins wrote: »
    It would seem to me that without the skills to scrape the data, videoing the screen or using a screen video program would be the best option to retrieve the data, without paying $10.

    Took me a few minutes, and no videos, and I've got my info without paying $10. :)

    I don't suppose you'd care to share?

    Go to Exercise ... and Exercise Diary ...


    Scroll Down ...

    Click the bright green View Full Report (Printable) button. You'll see this screen ... except with your name, of course.


    Change the From to something a long time ago ... 2 or 3 years ago ... then click the Change Report button. You'll get a screen like this giving you the last 365 days and telling you it will only display the last 365 days.

    Right click on the screen and choose Print.

    Print to pdf.

    Voila! :)

    Then you do that for each year you want. :)


    Slightly more complicated ...

    Right click on the screen and choose View Page Source.

    When the code opens, select the part that has the info you want and copy into WordPad.

    From there, extract the numbers. :)

    Voila! :)

    Then you do that for each year you want. :)

    This process works for me, with problems.

    I selected first a date range for all of 2012 and then all of 2013. While I did get all of my exercise entries, my food entries didn't start until August for the former and July for the later. For 2014, my food started in April.

    When I opened up the pdfs, I saw this message:

    3eb2a95ffa92e8c520c542f0d037982c.png

    And sure enough, my data is definitely truncated - 2012 & 2014 start in mid October, 2013 in December.

    ETA - ah, I was not printing to pdf correctly. Once I did this through the print menu, my data was no longer truncated :)
  • imvandeen
    imvandeen Posts: 12 Member
    PAV8888 wrote: »
    You see the little lock to the right? You're not going to get any data!

    https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10768872/november-1-2019-food-diary-change/p1?new=1

    is my "suggestion" post in the suggestions forum. Feel free to up-vote / discuss.

    While MFP staff MIGHT consider a crowd supported suggestion in that section, threads like this are guaranteed to be completely ignored unless a moderator decides we're too rowdy!

    You've got my thumb up vote !! 👍
  • tinkerbellang83
    tinkerbellang83 Posts: 9,142 Member
    kshama2001 wrote: »
    imvandeen wrote: »
    I'd like a chance to be able to export & save my data as well.

    I know that other people who I have inspired to use the MFP tool have benefited from being able to see where I started from & what I ate & how I exercised to get to where I am now.

    I'd also like to know if I became a premium member at a later date would the info be available again?

    NB Just tried to export everything now & see that feature is locked except for premium members already :-(

    Hmm, I'm not getting any indication that it is locked already. I do get a promo for Premium afterwards, but it's not clear that I need to upgrade first. Of course, I haven't received my data yet.

    The PITA way to go around this on web is to go to Food, and then from your current diary page, scroll down and click “View Full Report”. You can then copy and paste based on a date range.

    But you can’t do the full thing at one time, and the period of time you can do in one setting is inconsistent. At one point it was letting me do 4 months at a time, and then in the same evening, it took it to less than a week.

    Aka: yet another reason why I won’t pay for premium.

    @collectingblues Thanks for this, I didn't need to export to a spreadsheet, printing to PDF was useful enough.

    Did however have to to do it 1 month at a time, but only took me about 15 mins to save over 2 years of data.

    You're a :star:
  • cheryldumais
    cheryldumais Posts: 1,907 Member
    I'm getting varying amounts of time as well no matter what date range I choose. Mostly I get about 2 months at a time. Very frustrating.
  • cheryldumais
    cheryldumais Posts: 1,907 Member
    Just took a look by the day and much of it is already gone. I think they have already removed some of the data. I've been on here since 2015 but when I try to pull up the days they are blank.
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