As pointed out by, the --script is deprecated in 3.x. This approach can be used by applying a post-save-hook. In particular, add the following to ipython_notebook_config.py:

import os
from subprocess import check_call

def post_save(model, os_path, contents_manager):
    """post-save hook for converting notebooks to .py scripts"""
    if model['type'] != 'notebook':
        return # only do this for notebooks
    d, fname = os.path.split(os_path)
    check_call(['ipython', 'nbconvert', '--to', 'script', fname], cwd=d)

c.FileContentsManager.post_save_hook = post_save

The code is taken from #8009.

As pointed out by, the --script is deprecated in 3.x. This approach can be used by applying a post-save-hook. In particular, add the following to ipython_notebook_config.py:

import os
from subprocess import check_call

def post_save(model, os_path, contents_manager):
    """post-save hook for converting notebooks to .py scripts"""
    if model['type'] != 'notebook':
        return # only do this for notebooks
    d, fname = os.path.split(os_path)
    check_call(['ipython', 'nbconvert', '--to', 'script', fname], cwd=d)

c.FileContentsManager.post_save_hook = post_save

The code is taken from #8009.