Filter by date doesn't seem to be working for me

[bialyrycerz]

I am using the construct instaloader --post-filter="date_utc <= datetime(2018, 5, 31)" target from the documentation, but instaloader seems to be ignoring that and downloading all posts anyway.

Using the command line:
instaloader +/Users/user/Documents/iloader.txt

iloader.txt contains:

--filename-pattern={date_utc:%Y-%m-%d_%H-%M-%S}_{mediaid}_{owner_id}
--no-captions
--no-videos
--post-filter="date_utc >= datetime(2024,1,1)"
username

Based on the documentation, I would've expected this to download posts after 1/1/2024, but it's downloading everything.
It is the first time downloading this user; does that supersede any filter commands?
Or, is there something incorrect I'm doing here?
Thanks

[samadbek-e]

So you want to scrape the data before datetime(2018, 5, 31), yeah?

[bialyrycerz]

After. Wouldn't date_utc >= datetime(2024,1,1) scrape posts after 1/1/2024? Or am I misunderstanding something?

[giovsta]

I did date filtering like this:

profile_posts = instaloader.Profile.from_username(L.context, username).get_posts()

SINCE = datetime(2023, 1, 1)  # further from today, included
print("Downloading since: ", SINCE)

UNTIL = datetime(2024, 1, 1)  # closer to today, not included
print("Downloading until: ", UNTIL)
    
for post in profile_posts:
    postdate = post.date
    time_stamp = str(postdate)
    if postdate > UNTIL:
        print("Ain't there yet! The post is from " + time_stamp)
        continue
    elif postdate < SINCE:
        print("I may have gotten too far: the post is from " + time_stamp)
        break
    else:
        print("Downloading from " + time_stamp)
        L.download_post(post, username)

I haven't tested it right now, but a few weeks ago it worked, let me know if this helped!

[bialyrycerz]

Thank you -- I am trying to do this via the command line option, though...but maybe that won't work.

[bialyrycerz]

Update: I am finding that --post-filter seems to work when I use it directly on the command line, but not from an args file.

So:
instaloader --post-filter="date_utc > datetime(2024, 1, 1)" --filename-pattern={date_utc:%Y-%m-%d_%H-%M-%S}_{mediaid}_{owner_id} <target> skips earlier posts as expected. But using it in the args file I posted originally does not.

[makako-dev]

@bialyrycerz OK I was having the same issue and I got it working. On your args files, you need to remove the quotes from the conditional expression, such as:

--filename-pattern={date_utc:%Y-%m-%d_%H-%M-%S}{mediaid}{owner_id}
--no-captions
--no-videos
--post-filter=date_utc >= datetime(2024,1,1)
username

Now my only question is, if the posts are "skipped", does this count against our rate limit?