Typepad is Shutting down - How to migrate posts to Tumblr
The blogging service Typepad has announced it is shutting down and deleting the data at the end of Sept 2025. In order to not lose my posts from 20-15 years ago I exported the posts from Typepad, which are saved in one txt file in Typepad's MovableType format. However since this is an older and less well known format there is a lack of support for importing the posts into Tumblr.
So I worked with ChatGPT and developed a python script that reads the exported posts and posts them to Tumblr and preserves the date they were originally posted. The script works with Tumblr's OAuth support for apps to post your exported Typepad blog posts to your Tumblr blog.
Note: There is a limit in Tumblr of about 250 posts per Day to prevent spam. So if you have more than that you can use the --start-index and --limit parameters to batch posts each day.
Here is the typepad_to_tymblr.py script that worked for me to help you get started with posting your Typepad export to Tumblr.
You can copy the text from the above and paste it into ChatGPT or Claude and work through the script if you need help troubleshooting how to run it and adding an app with OAuth token.
For the initial setup you can use the --dry-run parameter to check if your python environment and the python script can run properly before it attempts to post to Tumblr.
python3 typepad_to_tumblr.py \ -f /path/to/TypepadExport.txt \ -b yourblog.tumblr.com \ --ck YOUR_CONSUMER_KEY \ --cs YOUR_CONSUMER_SECRET \ --assume-tz Asia/Tokyo \ --start-index 10 \ --dry-run \ --limit 5
For example, the below parameters would post from the 10th blog entry in your Typepad export and post the next 5 entries: python3 typepad_to_tumblr.py \ -f /path/to/TypepadExport.txt \ -b yourblog.tumblr.com \ --ck YOUR_CONSUMER_KEY \ --cs YOUR_CONSUMER_SECRET \ --assume-tz Asia/Tokyo \ --start-index 10 \ --limit 5
Next you would start with the 15th blog entry in your export and post the next 5 entries, so you can change the --start-index and --limit values to fit your needs: python3 typepad_to_tumblr.py \ -f /path/to/TypepadExport.txt \ -b yourblog.tumblr.com \ --ck YOUR_CONSUMER_KEY \ --cs YOUR_CONSUMER_SECRET \ --assume-tz Asia/Tokyo \ --start-index 15 \ --limit 5
