LDSGeneralConferenceDownloader

A script to download General Conference talks for offline listening.

Who is this for?

This script is ideal for:

• Going on long journeys without reliable internet connection,
• Full-time missionaries who want to listen to conference talks during study time,
• Anyone who wishes to study from the conference talks but doesn't have a reliable internet connection.

What it can do?

This script will allow you to download the LDS General Conference talks in mp3 form that are available at https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference. It will create playlists as *.m3u files to allow you to play an entire session. It will also create playlists for speakers and topics. This will not only work with the default English versions, but also for every other language for which audio files are available. Currently, hundreds of talks are available in many languages, going back as far as 1971 for some.

How does it work?

It will programmatically navigate the churchofjesuschrist.org website, downloading and organising every talk of interest to you. Everything will be saved to a local folder of your choice. Load these files onto a memory stick for your car, or into your favourite media player.

What do I need to do to run this script?

1. Install Python 3. If you don't have Python installed on your system, then follow the instructions here to install it: https://www.python.org/downloads/
2. The script needs some external library functionality. Using the terminal, navigate to this folder, then run the command: pip install -r requirements.txt
3. The script is run as follows: python gen_conf_downloader.py
4. There are a number of optional arguments that my be added to the above command (run python gen_conf_downloader.py -h for full list):

Argument	Values	Meaning
-h or --help		List all arguments and exit
-l or -lang	3-letter language code	Indicates which language version is to be downloaded. See https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/languages for full list. Click on the language you want, then take note of the 3-letter code in the address bar. i.e. https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/?lang=*spa*
-s or -start	Year as 4 digit number	First year of conference to download. Defaults to 1971. Note: not all historic sessions are available in all languages
-e or -end	Year as 4 digit number	Last year to download (defaults to current year).
-d or -dest	folder relative to here. i.e. ./conference	Destination folder to output files to. Defaults to output
-n or -nocleanup		Leaves temporary files after process completion.
-v or -verbose		Provides detailed activity logging instead of progress bars.
-nonumbers		Skips adding numbers to session directory names.
-noplaylists		Skips creating m3u playlist files.
-notopics		Skip downloading speakers by topic.
-speaker-min		Minimum number of talks to create a speaker playlist file.
-nogui		Use command line only to show progress.

Note: Depending upon how many years worth of conferences you ask it to download, it may take some time!

How do I create an executable to share with family and friends?

1. Follow steps 1 and 2 under "What do I need to do to run this script?"
2. Install pyinstaller pip install pyinstaller
3. Create executable using pyinstaller (WINDOWS) pyinstaller -F -n GeneralConferenceDownloader --add-data="conference_headers.json;." gen_conf_downloader.py
4. Share dist/GeneralConferenceDownloader.exe with your family and friends

What does it generate?

It will generate a folder structure as follows in your destination folder:

output
└───General Conference (eng)
    └───Conferences
    │   2021-(87, 7h44m).m3u
    │   2021-April-(87, 7h44m).m3u
    │   2021-April-Saturday Morning Session-(87, 7h44m).m3u
    │   2021-April-Saturday Afternoon Session-(87, 7h44m).m3u
    │   ...
    └───MP3
    │   └───2021
    │   │   └───April
    │   │   │   └───10-Saturday Morning Session
    │   │   │   │   ...
    │   │   │   └───20-Saturday Afternoon Session
    │   │   │   │   ...
    │   │   │   └───30-Priesthood Session
    │   │   │   │   31 Am I a Child of God? (Brian K. Taylor).mp3
    │   │   │   │   32 Even as Christ Forgives You, So Also Do Ye (Larry J. Echo Hawk).mp3
    │   │   │   │   ...
    │   │   └───October
    │   └───2017
    │       ...
    └───Speakers
    │   D. Todd Christofferson-(2021-2010, 1, 13m).m3u
    │   Dallin H. Oaks(2021-2000, 3, 45m).m3u
    │   ...
    └───Topics
        Adversity-(3, 44m).m3u
        Atonement-(6, 1h4m).m3u
        ...

The playlists for the Topics and Speakers include in parenthesis the number of talks and the total duration and talk min/max year range for speakers.