birthdays

birthdays is a robust Python command-line tool designed to conveniently manage, track, and celebrate your contacts' birthdays.

Features

• Customizable Sorting: List birthdays exactly how you want to see them (by upcoming, recent, age, date, (full) name or specific name components like first_name and last_name).
• CRUD Operations: Easily add, edit, and delete contacts. The deletion and edit commands feature a convenient fuzzy search so you don't have to type out exact names
• Smart Imports: Import contacts directly from .vcf vCard files or JSON databases
• Smart Name Parsing: Automatically breaks down names into distinct parts, letting you easily verify and adjust them via an interactive prompt.
• Interactive Merging: During imports, the CLI intelligently detects duplicates or data collisions and prompts you to safely merge them
• Leapling Support: Configure how leap year birthdays (February 29th) are handled in non-leap years, choosing to celebrate either the day before or the day after
• Organizational Groups: Assign contacts to custom tags (like family, friends, or coworkers) to keep your database organized and filter terminal outputs.
• Festive UI: Every date is assigned a unique, deterministic emoji to keep the terminal vibe bright and colorful (can be disabled via a global flag or environment variables)
• Shell MOTD: Automatically display a summary of upcoming birthdays when opening a new terminal session, complete with safe, automated hooks for .bashrc, .zshrc, config.fish, and PowerShell profiles
• iCalendar Export: Generate standard .ics files to import into your favorite calendar app, complete with customizable reminders, dynamic text templates, and proper leap year handling.

Requirements

• Python 3.11+

Installation

Install the package from PyPI using your favorite package management tool such as pip, pipx, or uv:

pip install birthdays-cli

Or install the latest version from source:

git clone https://github.com/l1asis/birthdays.git
cd birthdays
pip install .

Usage

birthdays uses simple subcommands to organize different operations. You can append --help to any command to see its available arguments.

Listing Birthdays

Note

By default, this sorts by upcoming birthdays in descending order so the most immediate celebrations are right at your cursor.

# Basic list
birthdays list

# List sorted by age in ascending order
birthdays list --sort age --order asc

# List sorted alphabetically by last name
birthdays list --sort last_name --order asc

# Temporarily read and display birthdays directly from a file without modifying your local database
birthdays list --file ./contacts.vcf

# Show categorized contacts
birthdays list --view groups

# Filter by groups and a condition
birthdays list -g coworkers -g friends --match all

Adding a Contact

Note

The date can be formatted as YYYY-MM-DD, or simply MM-DD if the year is unknown.

birthdays add "John Doe" 1990-05-14 --note "Loves chocolate cake"

Editing a Contact

Note

You can use either the name or UUID. You only need to pass the flags for the specific data you want to change.

birthdays edit "John Doe" --date 1991-05-14

Tip

The CLI will interactively prompt you to verify the parsed name parts when adding / editing. To bypass this, append -y to automatically accept the parser's result, or provide explicit flags for scripting (e.g., --first-name "John" --last-name "Doe").

Deleting a Contact

Tip

The CLI uses fuzzy matching, so typing a partial name usually works! Append -y to skip the confirmation prompt.

birthdays delete "John Doe"

Deleting Multiple Contacts

Warning

This will permanently delete contacts from your database. Use with caution.

# Clear the entire database
birthdays clear

# Clear contacts belonging to a specific group
birthdays clear -g acquaintances

# Clear silently without a confirmation prompt
birthdays clear -y

Importing Contacts

Tip

The interactive prompt will guide you through any data collisions. Append -y to automatically skip these prompts and blindly merge safe contacts.

birthdays import ./contacts.vcf

Shell MOTD (Message of the Day)

You can automatically display a minimal summary of upcoming birthdays every time you open a new terminal session.

Display the MOTD manually:

birthdays motd

Enable the startup hook:

birthdays motd enable --days 14 --limit 5 --quiet-if-empty --once-per-day

This automatically detects your shell and injects an easily removable sentinel block. Running this command again with new flags will update the existing block in-place. The --once-per-day flag ensures the summary is only printed the first time you open a terminal each day, preventing terminal spam.

Note

You can pass a --rc-file flag if you use a custom shell config.

Disable the startup hook:

birthdays motd disable

This safely removes the MOTD sentinel block from your shell configuration without affecting surrounding custom code.

Database Maintenance

Note

If you are upgrading from an older version of birthdays, your existing contacts won't have the new structured name components. You can backfill them automatically.

Repair and backfill missing name parts:

birthdays repair --names

Force a complete resync of all name parts from their full names:

birthdays repair --names --force

Exporting to iCalendar (.ics)

Basic static export (creates infinite recurring events):

birthdays export ./my_birthdays.ics

Advanced spanned export (generates distinct events for the next 10 years to support dynamic ages):

birthdays export ./my_birthdays.ics --years 10

Customize reminders, templates, and filter by groups:

birthdays export ./family.ics -g family --alarm-days 2 --alarm-time "10:00" --title "{first_name}'s {ordinal_age} Birthday!"

Configurations

Database Path

By default, birthdays stores your birthdays.json database in your operating system's standard user data directory. If you want to use a custom location (for example, to sync your database via Dropbox, Nextcloud, or a dotfiles repository), you can override this behavior by setting the BIRTHDAYS_HOME environment variable.

• BIRTHDAYS_HOME=/path/to/your/custom/folder

The tool will automatically create the directory and the birthdays.json file inside it if they do not already exist.

Emojis

You can disable emojis globally across all subcommands by placing the --no-emoji flag before the subcommand (e.g., birthdays --no-emoji list).

For a more permanent solution, birthdays respects the following environment variables:

• BIRTHDAYS_NO_EMOJI=1 (or true, yes)
• NO_EMOJI=1 (the widely adopted community convention)

Note

The method for setting environment variables depends on your operating system and terminal. Please search online for instructions specific to your OS.

Contributing

Contributions are what make the open source community such an amazing place to learn, inspire, and create. Any contributions you make are greatly appreciated.

1. Fork the Project
2. Create your Feature Branch (git checkout -b feat/amazing-feature)
3. Commit your Changes (git commit -m 'feat: ✨ add some amazing-feature')
4. Push to the Branch (git push origin feat/amazing-feature)
5. Open a Pull Request

License

Distributed under the MIT License. See LICENSE for more information.