_______  __   __  ___   _______    __   __  _______  __   __  ______  
|       ||  | |  ||   | |       |  |  | |  ||       ||  | |  ||      | 
|_     _||  |_|  ||   | |  _____|  |  |_|  ||   _   ||  | |  ||___   | 
  |   |  |       ||   | | |_____   |       ||  | |  ||  |_|  |  __|  | 
  |   |  |       ||   | |_____  |  |_     _||  |_|  ||       | |_____| 
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   |___|  |__| |__||___| |_______|    |___|  |_______||_______|  |__|    

Explore a Reddit user's archived posts and comments without leaving your terminal.

thisyou is a fast, keyboard-driven TUI that searches Arctic Shift and PullPush concurrently, then merges and deduplicates the archived results into one navigable history. No Reddit account, API key, or browser workflow is required.

Highlights

• Browse archived posts and comments in a responsive full-screen interface.
• Search both archives concurrently and continue when one source is unavailable.
• Filter by text, subreddit, record type, date, or archived score.
• Sort by newest, oldest, score, or subreddit.
• Inspect full records, open Reddit links, and copy useful fields.
• View profile summaries, compare Redditors, and inspect source coverage.
• Analyze subreddit share, activity patterns, and archived score snapshots.
• Bookmark records, save profiles, and reopen cached histories offline.
• Check archive availability on startup and manage local caches and exports.
• Incrementally refresh an existing history without starting over.
• Export the current result view to CSV, JSON, Markdown, or SQLite.

Installation

Homebrew — macOS and Linux

brew install martintrifunov/tap/thisyou
thisyou

Once installed, update to a newer release with:

brew update
brew upgrade thisyou

PowerShell — Windows

Install the latest x64 or ARM64 release from PowerShell:

irm https://raw.githubusercontent.com/martintrifunov/thisyou/main/install.ps1 | iex

The installer verifies the release checksum, places thisyou.exe in %LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\thisyou, and adds that directory to your user PATH. Run the same install command again whenever you want to upgrade. Then start the TUI with:

thisyou

To review the installer before running it:

irm https://raw.githubusercontent.com/martintrifunov/thisyou/main/install.ps1 -OutFile install-thisyou.ps1
Get-Content .\install-thisyou.ps1
.\install-thisyou.ps1

The repository also contains a WinGet manifest awaiting inclusion in Microsoft's community package source. Once accepted, installation will be available as:

winget install MartinTrifunov.ThisYou

From source — macOS and Linux

git clone https://github.com/martintrifunov/thisyou.git
cd thisyou
make install
thisyou

make install uses Homebrew's bin directory when available and otherwise uses /usr/local/bin. You can select a different destination with make install BINDIR="$HOME/.local/bin".

Quick start

Run thisyou, enter a bare username, u/username, @username, or a Reddit profile URL, and press enter. Press ? on any screen for the complete command reference.

u/example_username

Use tab to move between all records, posts, and comments. Select a result with j / k, inspect it with enter, and press esc to return.

Command reference

Search and navigation

Key	Action
enter	Search the entered username or inspect the selected record
j / k, arrows	Move through records and scrollable views
tab / shift+tab	Switch between All, Posts, and Comments
page up / page down	Move by one visible page
g / G	Jump to the first or last record
r	Return to username search
?	Open the complete in-app command reference

Results and profiles

Key	Action
/	Filter the current result view
S	Cycle newest, oldest, score, and subreddit sorting
s	Open the profile summary
C	Compare the current profile with another Redditor
d	Open archive stream and source-coverage diagnostics
R	Fetch and merge records newer than the current history
e	Export the current view as CSV, JSON, Markdown, or SQLite
b	Save or remove the selected bookmark
p	Save or remove the current profile
B	Open all saved bookmarks
ctrl+b	Open bookmarks from the username screen
ctrl+o	Open the entered user's latest cached history offline
ctrl+p	Open saved profiles
ctrl+l	Manage cached histories and exports

Record actions

Key	Action
o	Open the selected record on Reddit
y	Copy a URL, text, author, subreddit, or linked URL
esc / backspace	Close the current secondary view
q	Quit from results or close the current secondary view
ctrl+c	Quit immediately from any screen

After pressing y, choose u for the Reddit URL, t for record text, a for the author, s for the subreddit, or l for the linked URL. URLs inside an inspected record are terminal hyperlinks; Ctrl-click to open one, or Cmd-click in terminals that use the macOS modifier.

Filtering

The / filter combines ordinary search terms with optional query tokens. Every plain-text term must match, and dates are inclusive.

privacy sub:AskReddit type:comment after:2025-01-01 min:10

Token	Meaning
sub:AskReddit	Match one subreddit
type:post	Match posts or comments
after:2025-01-01	Match that date and later
before:2025-12-31	Match that date and earlier
min:10 / max:100	Match an archived score range

Exporting

Press e from the results screen, then choose c for CSV, j for JSON, m for Markdown, or s for SQLite. The export contains the current tab, filter, and sort order and is written to the configured export directory.

thisyou-username-20260825-153000.csv
thisyou-username-20260825-153000.json
thisyou-username-20260825-153000.md
thisyou-username-20260825-153000.sqlite

SQLite exports contain metadata, records, and record_sources tables, with indexes on subreddit and creation time.

Cache and bookmarks

Completed crawls are cached per username. Enter a username and press ctrl+o to reopen the latest saved history without contacting either archive. Press R from results to fetch only newer records, merge them with the current history, and update the cache.

Bookmarks contain complete archived records and persist between sessions in thisyou/bookmarks.json inside the operating system's user-config directory. Cache and bookmark files are written atomically with permissions restricted to the current user.

Press p from results to save a profile, then ctrl+p to reopen it from any search or results screen. Press ctrl+l to inspect cached-history and export sizes, open cached profiles, or delete an entry after confirmation.

Configuration

On first launch, thisyou creates thisyou/config.json in the operating system's user-config directory. Available settings are:

{
  "version": 1,
  "export_directory": ".",
  "default_sort": "newest",
  "request_timeout_seconds": 25,
  "cache_enabled": true,
  "startup_health_check": true,
  "theme": {
    "accent": "#ff4500",
    "muted": "#818384",
    "foreground": "#d7dadc",
    "border": "#343536"
  }
}

default_sort accepts newest, oldest, score, or subreddit. Relative export paths are resolved from the directory where the application starts.

How retrieval works

Four independent crawlers run concurrently: Arctic Shift posts, Arctic Shift comments, PullPush posts, and PullPush comments. Each stream owns its timestamp cursor, so a faster source cannot cause another source to skip records. The final history is merged and deduplicated by Reddit ID.

Transient network failures, HTTP 429 responses, and server errors are retried. If a source remains unavailable, thisyou retains the records returned by the other streams and clearly marks the crawl as partial.

Important

thisyou can only display public records captured by third-party archives. Archive coverage and uptime are not guaranteed, so "entire history" means the complete history currently available from those sources. Use archived data responsibly and respect people's privacy and the services' terms.

Development

macOS and Linux:

make test
make vet
make build

Windows PowerShell:

.\build.ps1 -Task Test
.\build.ps1 -Task Build

Check an installed build without opening the TUI with thisyou --version.

License

Released under the MIT License.