The Cranking Widgets Blog

By now, my Stikkit fanboy status is hardly a secret. And while there have been a couple of other posts around here dealing with some theoretical Stikkit coolness, I figured it was time to give something a little more concrete to my Stikkit-loving brethren. Oh, and I also thought it a good opportunity to put my money where my mouth was as far as all this programming/programmer advice.

So, with all that in mind, I have something for you all. It should make transitioning to Stikkit a bit easier for the Gmail users out there (at least, so you can start out with a full stock of ‘Peeps’ when you switch to Stikkit for your GTD purposes – Please be warned, this is a command line application and will require you to get your hands dirty a bit – but I think you’ll be pleased with the results.

This little ditty takes an Outlook-compatible CSV file (which Gmail is capable of exporting your contacts into) and your handy, dandy Stikkit API key and creates a Peep stikkit for each of your contacts by sending the data to Stikkit via their lovely API (hence, the need for the API key). Here’s how to use it:

First, we need to gather the necessary tools and information – here’s what you’ll need:

1. The Python Language Runtime – OS X ships with this, so if you’re running Windows, you’ll need to install this as well as make sure you add the python executables to your PATH environment variable. There are instructions on doing this here (but note that your python version will likely be Python 2.5 instead of 2.3). If this ends up being a problem and you need some extra help getting this bit working, feel free to contact me and I’ll help you out.
2. Your Stikkit API Key – This can be retrieved from the Stikkit settings page at http://stikkit.com/settings or by clicking on your username at the top of the Stikkit site while logged in. You can find it about halfway down the page (and you’ll have to click ‘Show’ to display it). Copy that key into a blank text file or something
3. Your Gmail Contacts, Exported as a CSV File – In Gmail, click ‘Contacts’, then Export (right-hand side, near the top). In the resulting pop-up window, choose the second option, ‘Outlook CSV’. Save this file to a location you’ll remember.
4. The Stikkit Import Script – Extract this zip file in the same directory as you saved your Gmail contacts CSV file.

Now, before we continue, a couple caveats:

• This software doesn’t have a warranty. It’s just something I wrote that I thought people might be able to use, so don’t blame me if it steals your favorite cuff-links.
• While I tried to make this application as robust as possible, it’s meant more as a way to get most of the heavy lifting done. You may have to go back and do a bit of pruning, depending on how anal you are about your Gmail contact information
• This program will only process contacts that have at least a Name and an Email address. If these two pieces of information exist in the contact record, you should be fine. If not, the records that are missing said information will be skipped during processing

Now, you should have, in one directory, your Gmail CSV file and the Python script. See these examples of how you run this bad boy.

Run that command as shown from the correct directory and you should be off to the races. Because most websites that have exposed APIs like you to not completely hammer their servers, I’ve added a forced throttling of one second per request. So, figure 1.5 seconds per contact. It took me about 3.5 minutes to import all of my contacts, if that gives you any idea.

This application has been tested on Windows XP and Mac OS X (10.4), and it should work on Linux. Anyway, it’s far from perfect, but I hope you folks can find this useful. Again, please do not hesitate to contact me or leave a comment (preferred) if you can’t get it working or if you’d like it to do something beside what it already does.

Viva la Stikkit!

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