website/README.md
▶️ <a href="https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/wiki/Quickstart">Quickstart</a> | <a href="https://demo.archivebox.io">Demo</a> | <a href="https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox">GitHub</a> | <a href="https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/wiki">Documentation</a> | <a href="#background--motivation">Info & Motivation</a> | <a href="https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/wiki/Web-Archiving-Community">Community</a>
<!--<a href="http://webchat.freenode.net?channels=ArchiveBox&uio=d4"></a>--><a href="https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/blob/dev/LICENSE"></a> <a href="https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/commits/dev"></a> <a href="https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox"></a> <a href="https://hub.docker.com/r/archivebox/archivebox"></a> <a href="https://pypi.org/project/archivebox/"></a> <a href="https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/archivebox-exporter/habonpimjphpdnmcfkaockjnffodikoj"></a>
<!--<pre lang="bash" align="left"><code style="white-space: pre-line; text-align: left" align="left"> curl -fsSL 'https://get.archivebox.io' | bash # (or see pip/brew/Docker instructions below) </code></pre>--> </div> <hr/>ArchiveBox is a self-hosted app that lets you preserve content from websites in a variety of formats.
We aim to make your data immediately useful, and kept in formats that other programs can read directly. As output, we save standard HTML, PNG, PDF, TXT, JSON, WARC, SQLite, all guaranteed to be readable for decades to come. ArchiveBox also has a CLI, REST API, and webhooks so you can set up integrations with other services.
Without active preservation effort, everything on the internet eventually disappears or degrades.
ArchiveBox is an open source tool that lets organizations & individuals archive both public & private web content while retaining control over their data. It can be used to save copies of bookmarks, preserve evidence for legal cases, backup photos from FB/Insta/Flickr or media from YT/Soundcloud/etc., save research papers, and more...
➡️ Get ArchiveBox with
pip install archiveboxon Linux/macOS, or via Docker ⭐️ on any OS.
Once installed, you can interact with it through the: Browser Extension, CLI, self-hosted web interface, Python API, or filesystem.
<hr/>📥 You can feed ArchiveBox URLs one at a time, or schedule regular imports from your bookmarks or history, social media feeds or RSS, link-saving services like Pocket/Pinboard, our Browser Extension, and more.
<sub>See <a href="#input-formats">Input Formats</a> for a full list of supported input formats...</sub>
It saves snapshots of the URLs you feed it in several redundant formats.
It also detects any content featured inside pages & extracts it out into a folder:
original HTML+CSS+JS, singlefile HTML, screenshot PNG, PDF, WARC, title, article text, favicon, headers, ...post content TXT, comments, title, author, images, ...MP3/MP4s, subtitles, metadata, thumbnail, ...clone of GIT source code, README, images, ...You can run ArchiveBox as a Docker web app to manage these snapshots, or continue accessing the same collection using the pip-installed CLI, Python API, and SQLite3 APIs.
All the ways of using it are equivalent, and provide matching features like adding tags, scheduling regular crawls, viewing logs, and more...
🛠️ ArchiveBox uses standard tools like Chrome, wget, & yt-dlp, and stores data in ordinary files & folders.
(no complex proprietary formats, all data is readable without needing to run ArchiveBox)
The goal is to sleep soundly knowing the part of the internet you care about will be automatically preserved in durable, easily accessible formats for decades after it goes down.
<hr/>📦 Install ArchiveBox using your preferred method: docker / pip / apt / etc. (see full Quickstart below).
<sub>Open <a href="http://web.archivebox.localhost:8000"><code>http://web.archivebox.localhost:8000</code></a> for the public UI and <a href="http://admin.archivebox.localhost:8000"><code>http://admin.archivebox.localhost:8000</code></a> for the admin UI ➡️</sub>
<sub>Set <code>LISTEN_HOST</code> to change the base domain; <code>web.</code> and <code>admin.</code> subdomains are used automatically.</sub>
</details> <div align="center" style="text-align: center">
<small><a href="https://demo.archivebox.io">Demo</a> | <a href="#screenshots">Screenshots</a> | <a href="https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/wiki/Usage">Usage</a></small>
<sub>. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .</sub>
</div>ArchiveBox is free for everyone to self-host, but we also provide support, security review, and custom integrations to help NGOs, governments, and other organizations run ArchiveBox professionally:
crawling during research, preserving cited pages, fact-checking & reviewcollecting & preserving evidence, detecting changes, tagging & reviewanalyzing social media trends, getting LLM training data, crawling pipelinessaving bookmarks, preserving portfolio content, legacy / memoirs archivalsnapshoting public service sites, recordkeeping compliance<div align="center" style="text-align: center"> </div>Contact us if your org wants help using ArchiveBox professionally.
We offer: setup & support, CAPTCHA/ratelimit unblocking, SSO, audit logging/chain-of-custody, and more
ArchiveBox is a 🏛️ 501(c)(3) nonprofit FSP and all our work supports open-source development.
<a name="install"></a>
🖥 Supported OSs: Linux/BSD, macOS, Windows (Docker) 👾 CPUs: amd64 (x86_64), arm64, arm7 <sup>(raspi>=3)</sup>
<i>👍 Docker Compose is recommended for the easiest install/update UX + best security + all <a href="#dependencies">extras</a> out-of-the-box.</i>
<ol> <li>Install <a href="https://docs.docker.com/get-docker/">Docker</a> on your system (if not already installed).</li> <li>Download the <a href="https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/dev/docker-compose.yml" download><code>docker-compose.yml</code></a> file into a new empty directory (can be anywhere). <pre lang="bash"><code style="white-space: pre-line">mkdir -p ~/archivebox/data && cd ~/archivebox # Read and edit docker-compose.yml options as-needed after downloading curl -fsSL 'https://docker-compose.archivebox.io' > docker-compose.yml </code></pre></li> <li>Run the initial setup to create an admin user (or set ADMIN_USER/PASS in docker-compose.yml) <pre lang="bash"><code style="white-space: pre-line">docker compose run archivebox init --install </code></pre></li> <li>Next steps: Start the server then login to the Web UI <a href="http://127.0.0.1:8000">http://127.0.0.1:8000</a> ⇢ Admin. <pre lang="bash"><code style="white-space: pre-line">docker compose up # completely optional, CLI can always be used without running a server # docker compose run [-T] archivebox [subcommand] [--help] docker compose run archivebox add 'https://example.com' docker compose run archivebox help </code></pre> <i>For more info, see <a href="https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/wiki/Install#option-a-docker--docker-compose-setup-%EF%B8%8F">Install: Docker Compose</a> in the Wiki. ➡️</i> </li> </ol>See <a href="#%EF%B8%8F-cli-usage">below</a> for more usage examples using the CLI, Web UI, or <a href="https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/wiki/Usage#sql-shell-usage">filesystem/SQL/Python</a> to manage your archive.
</details> <details> <summary><b> <code>docker run</code></b> (macOS/Linux/Windows)</summary> <ol> <li>Install <a href="https://docs.docker.com/get-docker/">Docker</a> on your system (if not already installed).</li> <li>Create a new empty directory and initialize your collection (can be anywhere). <pre lang="bash"><code style="white-space: pre-line">mkdir -p ~/archivebox/data && cd ~/archivebox/data docker run -v $PWD:/data -it archivebox/archivebox init --install </code></pre> </li> <li>Optional: Start the server then login to the Web UI <a href="http://127.0.0.1:8000">http://127.0.0.1:8000</a> ⇢ Admin. <pre lang="bash"><code style="white-space: pre-line">docker run -v $PWD:/data -p 8000:8000 archivebox/archivebox # completely optional, CLI can always be used without running a server # docker run -v $PWD:/data -it [subcommand] [--help] docker run -v $PWD:/data -it archivebox/archivebox help </code></pre> <i>For more info, see <a href="https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/wiki/Install#option-a-docker--docker-compose-setup-%EF%B8%8F">Install: Docker Compose</a> in the Wiki. ➡️</i> </li> </ol>See <a href="#%EF%B8%8F-cli-usage">below</a> for more usage examples using the CLI, Web UI, or filesystem/SQL/Python to manage your archive.
</details> <details> <summary><b> <code>bash</code> auto-setup script</b> (macOS/Linux)</summary> <ol> <li>Install <a href="https://docs.docker.com/get-docker/">Docker</a> on your system (optional, highly recommended but not required).</li> <li>Run the automatic setup script. <pre lang="bash"><code style="white-space: pre-line">curl -fsSL 'https://get.archivebox.io' | bash</code></pre> <i>For more info, see <a href="https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/wiki/Install#option-b-automatic-setup-script">Install: Bare Metal</a> in the Wiki. ➡️</i> </li> </ol>See <a href="#%EF%B8%8F-cli-usage">below</a> for more usage examples using the CLI, Web UI, or filesystem/SQL/Python to manage your archive.
See <a href="https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/blob/dev/bin/setup.sh"><code>setup.sh</code></a> for the source code of the auto-install script.
See <a href="https://docs.sweeting.me/s/against-curl-sh">"Against curl | sh as an install method"</a> blog post for my thoughts on the shortcomings of this install method.
</details><a name="Manual-Setup"></a>
<details> <summary><b> <code>pip</code></b> (macOS/Linux/BSD)</summary> <ol> <li>Install <a href="https://realpython.com/installing-python/">Python >= v3.13</a> and <a href="https://nodejs.org/en/download/package-manager/">Node >= v22</a> on your system (if not already installed).</li> <li>Install the ArchiveBox package using <code>pip3</code> (or <a href="https://docs.astral.sh/uv/guides/tools/#running-tools"><code>uvx</code></a>). <pre lang="bash"><code style="white-space: pre-line">pip3 install --upgrade archivebox archivebox version # install any missing extras shown using apt/brew/pkg/etc. see Wiki for instructions # [email protected] node curl wget git ripgrep ... </code></pre> <i>See the <a href="https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/wiki/Install">Install: Bare Metal</a> Wiki for full install instructions for each OS...</i> </li> <li>Create a new empty directory and initialize your collection (can be anywhere). <pre lang="bash"><code style="white-space: pre-line">mkdir -p ~/archivebox/data && cd ~/archivebox/data # for example archivebox init --install # instantialize a new collection # (--setup auto-installs and link JS dependencies: singlefile, readability, mercury, etc.) </code></pre> </li> <li>Optional: Start the server then login to the Web UI <a href="http://127.0.0.1:8000">http://127.0.0.1:8000</a> ⇢ Admin. <pre lang="bash"><code style="white-space: pre-line">archivebox server 0.0.0.0:8000 # completely optional, CLI can always be used without running a server # archivebox [subcommand] [--help] archivebox help </code></pre> </li> </ol>See <a href="#%EF%B8%8F-cli-usage">below</a> for more usage examples using the CLI, Web UI, or filesystem/SQL/Python to manage your archive.
<sub>See the <a href="https://github.com/ArchiveBox/pip-archivebox"><code>pip-archivebox</code></a> repo for more details about this distribution.</sub>
</details> <details> <summary><b> <code>apt</code></b> (Ubuntu/Debian/etc.)</summary> <ol> <li>Download and install the <code>.deb</code> package from the <a href="https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/releases">latest release</a>. <pre lang="bash"><code style="white-space: pre-line"># download the .deb for your architecture (amd64 or arm64) ARCH="$(dpkg --print-architecture)" VERSION="$(curl -fsSL https://api.github.com/repos/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/releases/latest | python3 -c "import sys,json; print(json.load(sys.stdin)['tag_name'].lstrip('v'))")" curl -fsSL "https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/releases/latest/download/archivebox_${VERSION}_${ARCH}.deb" -o /tmp/archivebox.deb sudo apt install /tmp/archivebox.deb archivebox version # make sure all dependencies are installed </code></pre> </li> <li>Create a new empty directory and initialize your collection (can be anywhere). <pre lang="bash"><code style="white-space: pre-line">mkdir -p ~/archivebox/data && cd ~/archivebox/data archivebox init --install </code></pre> </li> <li>Optional: Start the server then login to the Web UI <a href="http://127.0.0.1:8000">http://127.0.0.1:8000</a> ⇢ Admin. <pre lang="bash"><code style="white-space: pre-line">archivebox server 0.0.0.0:8000 # completely optional, CLI can always be used without running a server # archivebox [subcommand] [--help] archivebox help </code></pre> </li> </ol> See <a href="#%EF%B8%8F-cli-usage">below</a> for more usage examples using the CLI, Web UI, or filesystem/SQL/Python to manage your archive.<sub>See the <a href="https://github.com/ArchiveBox/debian-archivebox"><code>debian-archivebox</code></a> repo for more details about this distribution.</sub>
</details> <details> <summary><b> <code>brew</code></b> (macOS only)</summary> <ol> <li>Install <a href="https://brew.sh/#install">Homebrew</a> on your system (if not already installed).</li> <li>Install the ArchiveBox package using <code>brew</code>. <pre lang="bash"><code style="white-space: pre-line">brew tap archivebox/archivebox brew install archivebox archivebox version # make sure all dependencies are installed </code></pre> <i>See the <a href="https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/wiki/Install#option-c-bare-metal-setup">Install: Bare Metal</a> Wiki for more granular instructions for macOS... ➡️</i> </li> <li>Create a new empty directory and initialize your collection (can be anywhere). <pre lang="bash"><code style="white-space: pre-line">mkdir -p ~/archivebox/data && cd ~/archivebox/data archivebox init --install </code></pre> </li> <li>Optional: Start the server then login to the Web UI <a href="http://127.0.0.1:8000">http://127.0.0.1:8000</a> ⇢ Admin. <pre lang="bash"><code style="white-space: pre-line">archivebox server 0.0.0.0:8000 # completely optional, CLI can always be used without running a server # archivebox [subcommand] [--help] archivebox help </code></pre> </li> </ol>See <a href="#%EF%B8%8F-cli-usage">below</a> for more usage examples using the CLI, Web UI, or filesystem/SQL/Python to manage your archive.
<sub>See the <a href="https://github.com/ArchiveBox/homebrew-archivebox"><code>homebrew-archivebox</code></a> repo for more details about this distribution.</sub>
</details> <details> <summary> <code>pacman</code> / <code>pkg</code> / <code>nix</code> (Arch/FreeBSD/NixOS/more)</summary><ul> <li>Arch: <a href="https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/archivebox/"><code>yay -S archivebox</code></a> (contributed by <a href="https://github.com/imlonghao"><code>@imlonghao</code></a>, maintained by <a href="https://github.com/jasongodev"><code>@jasongodev</code></a>)</li> <li>FreeBSD: <a href="https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox#%EF%B8%8F-easy-setup"><code>curl -fsSL 'https://get.archivebox.io' | bash</code></a> (uses <code>pkg</code> + <code>pip3</code> under-the-hood)</li> <li>Nix: <a href="https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/blob/master/pkgs/applications/misc/archivebox/default.nix"><code>nix-env --install archivebox</code></a> (contributed by <a href="https://github.com/siraben"><code>@siraben</code></a>)</li> <li>Guix: <a href="https://packages.guix.gnu.org/packages/archivebox/"><code>guix install archivebox</code></a> (contributed by <a href="https://github.com/rakino"><code>@rakino</code></a>)</li> <li>More: <a href="https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/issues/new"><i>contribute another distribution...!</i></a></li> </ul> See <a href="#%EF%B8%8F-cli-usage">below</a> for usage examples using the CLI, Web UI, or filesystem/SQL/Python to manage your archive. </details>Warning: These are contributed by external volunteers and may lag behind the official
pipchannel.
<i>✨ Alpha (contributors wanted!)</i>: for more info, see the: <a href="https://github.com/ArchiveBox/electron-archivebox">Electron ArchiveBox</a> repo.
</details> <details> <summary><b> TrueNAS / UNRAID / YunoHost / Cloudron / etc.</b> (self-hosting solutions)</summary><ul> <li><s>TrueNAS: <a href="https://truecharts.org/charts/stable/archivebox/">Official ArchiveBox TrueChart</a> / <a href="https://dev.to/finloop/setting-up-archivebox-on-truenas-scale-1788">Custom App Guide</a></s> (<a href="https://truecharts.org/news/scale-deprecation/">TrueCharts is discontinued</a>, wait for <a href="https://forums.truenas.com/t/the-future-of-electric-eel-and-apps/5409/">Electric Eel</a>)</li> <li><a href="https://unraid.net/community/apps?q=archivebox#r">UnRaid</a></li> <li><a href="https://community-scripts.github.io/ProxmoxVE/scripts?id=archivebox">Proxmox</a></li> <li><a href="https://github.com/YunoHost-Apps/archivebox_ynh">Yunohost</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.cloudron.io/store/io.archivebox.cloudronapp.html">Cloudron</a></li> <li><a href="https://docs.saltbox.dev/sandbox/apps/archivebox/">Saltbox</a></li> <li><a href="https://portainer-templates.as93.net/archivebox">Portainer</a></li> <li><a href="https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/pull/922/files#diff-00f0606e18b2618c3cc1667ca7c2b703b537af690ca71eba1330633587dcb1ee">AppImage</a></li> <li><a href="https://runtipi.io/docs/apps-available#:~:text=for%20AI%20Chats.-,ArchiveBox,Open%20source%20self%2Dhosted%20web%20archiving.,-Atuin%20Server">Runtipi</a></li> <li><a href="https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/issues/986">Umbrel</a> (need contributors...)</li> <li>More: <a href="https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/issues/new"><i>contribute another distribution...!</i></a></li> </ul> See <a href="#%EF%B8%8F-cli-usage">below</a> for usage examples using the CLI, Web UI, or filesystem/SQL/Python to manage your archive. </details> <details> <summary> Paid hosting solutions (cloud VPS)</summary> <ul> <li><a href="https://zulip.archivebox.io/#narrow/stream/167-enterprise/topic/welcome/near/1191102">Warning: These are contributed by external volunteers and may lag behind the official
pipchannel.
</a> (<a href="https://zulip.archivebox.io/#narrow/stream/167-enterprise/topic/welcome/near/1191102">get hosting, support, and feature customization directy from us</a>)</li>
<li><a href="https://monadical.com"></a> (<a href="https://monadical.com/contact-us.html">generalist consultancy that has ArchiveBox experience</a>)</li>
Other providers of paid ArchiveBox hosting (not officially endorsed):
<li><a href="https://elest.io/open-source/archivebox"></a></li> <li><a href="https://www.stellarhosted.com/archivebox/"></a> (USD $29-250/mo, <a href="https://www.stellarhosted.com/archivebox/#pricing">pricing</a>)</li> <li><a href="https://www.pikapods.com/pods?run=archivebox"></a> (from USD $2.6/mo)</li> <li><a href="https://m.do.co/c/cbc4c0c17840"></a> (USD $5-50+/mo, <a href="https://m.do.co/c/cbc4c0c17840">🎗 referral link</a>, <a href="https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-install-and-use-docker-compose-on-ubuntu-20-04">instructions</a>)</li>
<li><a href="https://www.vultr.com/?ref=7130289"></a> (USD $2.5-50+/mo, <a href="https://www.vultr.com/?ref=7130289">🎗 referral link</a>, <a href="https://www.vultr.com/docs/install-docker-compose-on-ubuntu-20-04">instructions</a>)</li>
<li><a href="https://fly.io/"></a> (USD $10-50+/mo, <a href="https://fly.io/docs/hands-on/start/">instructions</a>)</li>
<li><a href="https://railway.app/template/2Vvhmy"></a> (USD $0-5+/mo)</li>
<li><a href="https://aws.amazon.com/marketplace/pp/Linnovate-Open-Source-Innovation-Support-For-Archi/B08RVW6MJ2"></a> (USD $60-200+/mo)</li> <li><a href="https://azuremarketplace.microsoft.com/en-us/marketplace/apps/meanio.archivebox?ocid=gtmrewards_whatsnewblog_archivebox_vol118"></a> (USD $60-200+/mo)</li><sub><i>Referral links marked 🎗 provide $5-10 of free credit for new users and help pay for our <a href="https://demo.archivebox.io">demo server</a> hosting costs.</i></sub>
</ul>For more discussion on managed and paid hosting options see here: <a href="https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/issues/531">Issue #531</a>.
</details>archivebox persona create --import=chrome personalArchiveBox commands can be run in a terminal directly on your host, or via Docker/Docker Compose.
<sup>(depending on how you chose to install it above)</sup>
mkdir -p ~/archivebox/data # create a new data dir anywhere
cd ~/archivebox/data # IMPORTANT: cd into the directory
# archivebox [subcommand] [--help]
archivebox version
archivebox help
# equivalent: docker compose run archivebox [subcommand] [--help]
docker compose run archivebox help
# equivalent: docker run -it -v $PWD:/data archivebox/archivebox [subcommand] [--help]
docker run -it -v $PWD:/data archivebox/archivebox help
# optional: import your browser cookies into a persona for logged-in archiving
archivebox persona create --import=chrome personal
# supported: chrome/chromium/brave/edge (Chromium-based only)
# use --profile to target a specific profile (e.g. Default, Profile 1)
# re-running import merges/dedupes cookies.txt (by domain/path/name) but replaces chrome_user_data
archivebox help/version to see the list of available subcommands / currently installed version infoarchivebox setup/init/config/status/shell/manage to administer your collectionarchivebox add/schedule to pull in fresh URLs from bookmarks/history/RSS/etc.archivebox list/update/remove to manage existing Snapshots in your collection<i>For more info, see our <a href="https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/wiki/Usage#cli-usage">Usage: CLI Usage</a> wiki. ➡️</i>
</details> <details> <summary> <b>CLI Usage Examples: Docker Compose</b></summary> <pre lang="bash"><code style="white-space: pre-line"> # make sure you have `docker-compose.yml` from the Quickstart instructions first # docker compose run archivebox [subcommand] [--help] docker compose run archivebox init --install docker compose run archivebox version docker compose run archivebox help docker compose run archivebox add --depth=1 'https://news.ycombinator.com' # to start webserver: docker compose up </code></pre><i>For more info, see our <a href="https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/wiki/Docker#usage">Usage: Docker Compose CLI</a> wiki. ➡️</i>
</details> <details> <summary> <b>CLI Usage Examples: Docker</b></summary> <pre lang="bash"><code style="white-space: pre-line"> # make sure you create and cd into in a new empty directory first # docker run -it -v $PWD:/data archivebox/archivebox [subcommand] [--help] docker run -v $PWD:/data -it archivebox/archivebox init --install docker run -v $PWD:/data -it archivebox/archivebox version docker run -v $PWD:/data -it archivebox/archivebox help docker run -v $PWD:/data -it archivebox/archivebox add --depth=1 'https://news.ycombinator.com' # to start webserver: docker run -v $PWD:/data -it -p 8000:8000 archivebox/archivebox </code></pre><i>For more info, see our <a href="https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/wiki/Docker#usage-1">Usage: Docker CLI</a> wiki. ➡️</i>
</details> <details> <summary><b>🗄 SQL/Python/Filesystem Usage</b></summary> <pre lang="bash"><code style="white-space: pre-line"> archivebox shell # explore the Python library API in a REPL sqlite3 ./index.sqlite3 # run SQL queries directly on your index ls ./archive/*/index.html # or inspect snapshot data directly on the filesystem </code></pre> <i>For more info, see our <a href="https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/wiki/Usage#python-shell-usage">Python Shell</a>, <a href="https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/wiki/Usage#sql-shell-usage">SQL API</a>, and <a href="https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox#archive-layout">Disk Layout</a> wikis. ➡️</i> </details> <details> <summary><b>🖥 Web UI & API Usage</b></summary> <pre lang="bash"><code style="white-space: pre-line"> # Start the server on bare metal (pip/apt/brew/etc): archivebox manage createsuperuser # create a new admin user via CLI archivebox server 0.0.0.0:8000 # start the servernano docker-compose.yml # setup initial ADMIN_USERNAME & ADMIN_PASSWORD docker compose up # start the server
docker run -v $PWD:/data -it archivebox/archivebox archivebox manage createsuperuser docker run -v $PWD:/data -it -p 8000:8000 archivebox/archivebox </code></pre>
<sup>Open <a href="http://web.archivebox.localhost:8000"><code>http://web.archivebox.localhost:8000</code></a> for the public UI and <a href="http://admin.archivebox.localhost:8000"><code>http://admin.archivebox.localhost:8000</code></a> for the admin UI ➡️</sup>
<sup>Set <code>LISTEN_HOST</code> to change the base domain; <code>web.</code> and <code>admin.</code> subdomains are used automatically.</sup>
<i>For more info, see our <a href="https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/wiki/Usage#ui-usage">Usage: Web UI</a> wiki. ➡️</i>
<b>Optional: Change permissions to allow non-logged-in users</b>
<pre lang="bash"><code style="white-space: pre-line"> archivebox config --set PUBLIC_ADD_VIEW=True # allow guests to submit URLs archivebox config --set PUBLIC_SNAPSHOTS=True # allow guests to see snapshot content archivebox config --set PUBLIC_INDEX=True # allow guests to see list of all snapshots # or docker compose run archivebox config --set ... # restart the server to apply any config changes </code></pre> </details><details> <summary><i>Expand to show comparison...</i></summary> <pre lang="bash"><code style="white-space: pre-line"> archivebox add --depth=1 'https://example.com' # add a URL with pip-installed archivebox on the host docker compose run archivebox add --depth=1 'https://example.com' # or w/ Docker Compose docker run -it -v $PWD:/data archivebox/archivebox add --depth=1 'https://example.com' # or w/ Docker, all equivalent </code></pre>[!TIP] Whether in Docker or not, ArchiveBox commands work the same way, and can be used to access the same data on-disk. For example, you could run the Web UI in Docker Compose, and run one-off commands with
pip-installed ArchiveBox.
<i>For more info, see our <a href="https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/wiki/Docker">Docker</a> wiki. ➡️</i>
</details> <div align="center" style="text-align: center"> </div> <div align="center" style="text-align: center"> <sub>. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .</sub><a href="https://demo.archivebox.io">DEMO: <code>https://demo.archivebox.io</code></a>
<a href="https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/wiki/Usage">Usage</a> | <a href="https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/wiki/Configuration">Configuration</a> | <a href="#Caveats">Caveats</a>
</div><a name="input-formats"></a>
<b>From the official <a href="https://github.com/ArchiveBox/archivebox-extension">ArchiveBox Browser Extension</a></b>
<i>Provides realtime archiving of browsing history or selected pages from Chrome/Chromium/Firefox browsers.</i>
From manual imports of URLs from RSS, JSON, CSV, TXT, SQL, HTML, Markdown, etc. files
<i>ArchiveBox supports injesting URLs in any text-based format.</i>
From manually exported browser history or browser bookmarks (in Netscape format)
<i>Instructions: <a href="https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/96816?hl=en">Chrome</a>, <a href="https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/export-firefox-bookmarks-to-backup-or-transfer">Firefox</a>, <a href="https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/assets/511499/24ad068e-0fa6-41f4-a7ff-4c26fc91f71a">Safari</a>, <a href="https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/211089/how-to-import-and-export-the-internet-explorer-favorites-folder-to-a-32-bit-version-of-windows">IE</a>, <a href="https://help.opera.com/en/latest/features/#bookmarks:~:text=Click%20the%20import/-,export%20button,-on%20the%20bottom">Opera</a>, <a href="https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/wiki/Quickstart#2-get-your-list-of-urls-to-archive">and more...</a></i>
From URLs visited through a MITM Proxy with archivebox-proxy
<i>Provides realtime archiving of all traffic from any device going through the proxy.</i>
From bookmarking services or social media (e.g. Twitter bookmarks, Reddit saved posts, etc.)
<i>Instructions: <a href="https://getpocket.com/export">Pocket</a>, <a href="https://pinboard.in/export/">Pinboard</a>, <a href="https://www.instapaper.com/user">Instapaper</a>, <a href="https://shaarli.readthedocs.io/en/master/Usage/#importexport">Shaarli</a>, <a href="https://www.groovypost.com/howto/howto/export-delicious-bookmarks-xml/">Delicious</a>, <a href="https://github.com/csu/export-saved-reddit">Reddit Saved</a>, <a href="https://doc.wallabag.org/en/user/import/wallabagv2.html">Wallabag</a>, <a href="http://help.unmark.it/import-export">Unmark.it</a>, <a href="https://www.addictivetips.com/web/onetab-save-close-all-chrome-tabs-to-restore-export-or-import/">OneTab</a>, <a href="https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/issues/648">Firefox Sync</a>, <a href="https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/wiki/Quickstart#2-get-your-list-of-urls-to-archive">and more...</a></i>
# archivebox add --help
archivebox add 'https://example.com/some/page'
archivebox add --parser=generic_rss < ~/Downloads/some_feed.xml
archivebox add --depth=1 'https://news.ycombinator.com#2020-12-12'
echo 'http://example.com' | archivebox add
echo 'any text with <a href="https://example.com">urls</a> in it' | archivebox add
# if using Docker, add -i when piping stdin:
# echo 'https://example.com' | docker run -v $PWD:/data -i archivebox/archivebox add
# if using Docker Compose, add -T when piping stdin / stdout:
# echo 'https://example.com' | docker compose run -T archivebox add
See the Usage: CLI page for documentation and examples.
It also includes a built-in scheduled import feature with archivebox schedule, handled by the same orchestrator that powers archivebox server, so you can pull in URLs from RSS feeds and websites regularly without a separate cron container.
<a name="output-formats"></a>
For each web page added, ArchiveBox creates a Snapshot folder and preserves its content as ordinary files inside the folder (e.g. HTML, PDF, PNG, JSON, etc.).
It uses all available methods out-of-the-box, but you can disable extractors and fine-tune the configuration as-needed.
<details> <summary><i>Expand to see the full list of ways it saves each page...</i></summary><code>data/archive/{Snapshot.id}/</code>
<ul> <li><strong>Index:</strong> <code>index.html</code> & <code>index.json</code> HTML and JSON index files containing metadata and details</li> <li><strong>Title</strong>, <strong>Favicon</strong>, <strong>Headers</strong> Response headers, site favicon, and parsed site title</li> <li><strong>SingleFile:</strong> <code>singlefile.html</code> HTML snapshot rendered with headless Chrome using SingleFile</li> <li><strong>Wget Clone:</strong> <code>example.com/page-name.html</code> wget clone of the site with <code>warc/TIMESTAMP.gz</code></li> <li>Chrome Headless <ul> <li><strong>PDF:</strong> <code>output.pdf</code> Printed PDF of site using headless chrome</li> <li><strong>Screenshot:</strong> <code>screenshot.png</code> 1440x900 screenshot of site using headless chrome</li> <li><strong>DOM Dump:</strong> <code>output.html</code> DOM Dump of the HTML after rendering using headless chrome</li> </ul></li> <li><strong>Article Text:</strong> <code>article.html/json</code> Article text extraction using Readability & Mercury</li> <li><strong>Archive.org Permalink:</strong> <code>archive.org.txt</code> A link to the saved site on archive.org</li> <li><strong>Audio & Video:</strong> <code>media/</code> all audio/video files + playlists, including subtitles & metadata w/ <code>yt-dlp</code></li> <li><strong>Source Code:</strong> <code>git/</code> clone of any repository found on GitHub, Bitbucket, or GitLab links</li> <li><em>More coming soon! See the <a href="https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/wiki/Roadmap">Roadmap</a>...</em></li> </ul> </details>ArchiveBox can be configured via environment variables, by using the archivebox config CLI, or by editing ./ArchiveBox.conf.
archivebox config --set CHROME_BINARY=chromium # persist a config using CLI
echo CHROME_BINARY=chromium >> ArchiveBox.conf # persist a config using file
env CHROME_BINARY=chromium archivebox ... # run with a one-off config </code></pre> <sub>These methods also work the same way when run inside Docker, see the <a href="https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/wiki/Docker#configuration">Docker Configuration</a> wiki page for details.</sub>
</details>The configuration is documented here: Configuration Wiki, and loaded from: archivebox/config/.
<a name="most-common-options-to-tweak"></a>
<details> <summary><i>Expand to see the most common options to tweak...</i></summary> <pre lang="bash"><code style="white-space: pre-line"> # e.g. archivebox config --set TIMEOUT=120 # or docker compose run archivebox config --set TIMEOUT=120TIMEOUT=240 # default: 60 add more seconds on slower networks CHECK_SSL_VALIDITY=False # default: True False = allow saving URLs w/ bad SSL
PUBLIC_INDEX=True # default: True whether anon users can view index PUBLIC_SNAPSHOTS=True # default: True whether anon users can view pages PUBLIC_ADD_VIEW=False # default: False whether anon users can add new URLs
USER_AGENT="Mozilla/5.0 ..." # change this to get around bot blocking </code></pre>
</details>To achieve high-fidelity archives in as many situations as possible, ArchiveBox depends on a variety of 3rd-party libraries and tools that specialize in extracting different types of content.
Under-the-hood, ArchiveBox uses Django to power its Web UI, Django Ninja for the REST API, and SQlite + the filesystem to provide fast & durable metadata storage w/ deterministic upgrades.
ArchiveBox bundles industry-standard tools like Google Chrome, wget, yt-dlp, readability, etc. internally, and its operation can be tuned, secured, and extended as-needed for many different applications.
These optional subdependencies used for archiving sites include:
<ul> <li><code>chromium</code> / <code>chrome</code> (for screenshots, PDF, DOM HTML, and headless JS scripts)</li> <li><code>node</code> & <code>npm</code> (for readability, mercury, and singlefile)</li> <li><code>wget</code> (for plain HTML, static files, and WARC saving)</li> <li><code>curl</code> (for fetching headers, favicon, and posting to Archive.org)</li> <li><code>yt-dlp</code> or <code>youtube-dl</code> (for audio, video, and subtitles)</li> <li><code>git</code> (for cloning git repos)</li> <li><code>singlefile</code> (for saving into a self-contained html file)</li> <li><code>postlight/parser</code> (for discussion threads, forums, and articles)</li> <li><code>readability</code> (for articles and long text content)</li> <li>and more as we grow...</li> </ul>You don't need to install every dependency to use ArchiveBox. ArchiveBox will automatically disable extractors that rely on dependencies that aren't installed, based on what is configured and available in your <code>$PATH</code>.
If not using Docker, make sure to keep the dependencies up-to-date yourself and check that ArchiveBox isn't reporting any incompatibility with the versions you install.
<pre lang="bash"><code style="white-space: pre-line">#install python3 and archivebox with your system package manager # apt/brew/pip/etc install ... (see Quickstart instructions above) which -a archivebox # see where you have installed archivebox archivebox install # auto install all the extractors and extras archivebox --version # see info and check validity of installed dependencies </code></pre>Installing directly on <strong>Windows without Docker or WSL/WSL2/Cygwin is not officially supported</strong> (I cannot respond to Windows support tickets), but some advanced users have reported getting it working.
<h4>Learn More</h4> <ul> <li><a href="https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/wiki/Install#dependencies">Wiki: Install (Dependencies)</a></li> <li><a href="https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/wiki/Chromium-Install">Wiki: Chromium Install</a></li> <li><a href="https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/wiki/Upgrading-or-Merging-Archives">Wiki: Upgrading or Merging Archives</a></li> <li><a href="https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/wiki/Troubleshooting#installing">Wiki: Troubleshooting (Installing)</a></li> </ul> </details>All of ArchiveBox's state (SQLite DB, content, config, logs, etc.) is stored in a single folder per collection.
<details> <summary><i>Expand to learn more about the layout of Archivebox's data on-disk...</i></summary>Data folders can be created anywhere (~/archivebox/data or $PWD/data as seen in our examples), and you can create as many data folders as you want to hold different collections.
All <code>archivebox</code> CLI commands are designed to be run from inside an ArchiveBox data folder, starting with <code>archivebox init</code> to initialize a new collection inside an empty directory.
The on-disk layout is optimized to be easy to browse by hand and durable long-term. The main index is a standard <code>index.sqlite3</code> database in the root of the data folder (it can also be <a href="https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/wiki/Publishing-Your-Archive#2-export-and-host-it-as-static-html">exported as static JSON/HTML</a>), and the archive snapshots are organized by date-added timestamp in the <code>data/archive/</code> subfolder.
<pre lang="bash"><code style="white-space: pre-line">data/ index.sqlite3 ArchiveBox.conf archive/ ... 1617687755/ index.html index.json screenshot.png media/some_video.mp4 warc/1617687755.warc.gz git/somerepo.git ... </code></pre>Each snapshot subfolder <code>data/archive/TIMESTAMP/</code> includes a static <code>index.json</code> and <code>index.html</code> describing its contents, and the snapshot extractor outputs are plain files within the folder.
<h4>Learn More</h4> <ul> <li><a href="https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/wiki/Setting-Up-Storage">Wiki: Setting Up Storage (SMB, NFS, S3, B2, Google Drive, etc.)</a></li> <li><a href="https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/wiki/Usage#Disk-Layout">Wiki: Usage (Disk Layout)</a></li> <li><a href="https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/wiki/Usage#large-archives">Wiki: Usage (Large Archives)</a></li> <li><a href="https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/wiki/Security-Overview#output-folder">Wiki: Security Overview (Output Folder)</a></li> <li><a href="https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/wiki/Publishing-Your-Archive">Wiki: Publishing Your Archive</a></li> <li><a href="https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/wiki/Upgrading-or-Merging-Archives">Wiki: Upgrading or Merging Archives</a></li> </ul> </details>You can export your index as static HTML using archivebox list (so you can view it without an ArchiveBox server).
The paths in the static exports are relative, make sure to keep them next to your ./archive folder when backing them up or viewing them.
<a id="archiving-private-urls"></a>
If you're importing pages with private content or URLs containing secret tokens you don't want public (e.g Google Docs, paywalled content, unlisted videos, etc.), you may want to disable some of the extractor methods to avoid leaking that content to 3rd party APIs or the public.
<details> <summary><i>Expand to learn about privacy, permissions, and user accounts...</i></summary> <pre lang="bash"><code style="white-space: pre-line"># don't save private content to ArchiveBox, e.g.: archivebox add 'https://docs.google.com/document/d/12345somePrivateDocument' archivebox add 'https://vimeo.com/somePrivateVideo' # restrict the main index, Snapshot content, and Add Page to authenticated users as-needed: archivebox config --set PUBLIC_INDEX=False archivebox config --set PUBLIC_SNAPSHOTS=False archivebox config --set PUBLIC_ADD_VIEW=False archivebox manage createsuperuser </code></pre> <blockquote> <p><em>CAUTION: Assume anyone <em>viewing</em> your archives will be able to see any cookies, session tokens, or private URLs passed to ArchiveBox during archiving.</em> <em>Make sure to secure your ArchiveBox data and don't share snapshots with others without stripping out sensitive headers and content first.</em></p> </blockquote> <h4>Learn More</h4> <ul> <li><a href="https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/wiki/Publishing-Your-Archive">Wiki: Publishing Your Archive</a></li> <li><a href="https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/wiki/Security-Overview">Wiki: Security Overview</a></li> <li><a href="https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/wiki/Chromium-Install#setting-up-a-chromium-user-profile">Wiki: Chromium Install (Setting Up a User Profile)</a></li> <li><a href="https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/wiki/Configuration#chrome_user_data_dir">Wiki: Configuration (<code>CHROME_USER_DATA_DIR</code>)</a></li> <li><a href="https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/wiki/Configuration#cookies_file">Wiki: Configuration (<code>COOKIES_FILE</code>)</a></li> </ul> </details>Be aware that malicious archived JS can access the contents of other pages in your archive when viewed. Because the Web UI serves all viewed snapshots from a single domain, they share a request context and typical CSRF/CORS/XSS/CSP protections do not work to prevent cross-site request attacks. See the Security Overview page and Issue #239 for more details.
<details> <summary><i>Expand to see risks and mitigations...</i></summary> <pre lang="bash"><code style="white-space: pre-line"># visiting an archived page with malicious JS: https://127.0.0.1:8000/archive/1602401954/example.com/index.html # example.com/index.js can now make a request to read everything from: https://127.0.0.1:8000/index.html https://127.0.0.1:8000/archive/* # then example.com/index.js can send it off to some evil server </code></pre> <blockquote> <p><em>NOTE: Only the <code>wget</code> & <code>dom</code> extractor methods execute archived JS when viewing snapshots, all other archive methods produce static output that does not execute JS on viewing.</em><em>If you are worried about these issues ^ you should disable these extractors using: <code>archivebox config --set SAVE_WGET=False SAVE_DOM=False</code>.</em></p>
</blockquote> <h4>Learn More</h4> <ul> <li><a href="https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/wiki/Security-Overview">Wiki: Security Overview</a></li> <li><a href="https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/issues/239">ArchiveBox Github Issue: #239</a></li> <li><a href="https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/security/advisories/GHSA-cr45-98w9-gwqx">Security Advisory: <code>CVE-2023-45815</code></a></li> <li><a href="https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/wiki/Security-Overview#publishing">Wiki: Security Overview (Publishing)</a></li> </ul> </details>For various reasons, many large sites (Reddit, Twitter, Cloudflare, etc.) actively block archiving or bots in general. There are a number of approaches to work around this, and we also provide <a href="https://docs.monadical.com/s/archivebox-consulting-services">consulting services</a> to help here.
<details> <summary><i>Click to learn how to set up user agents, cookies, and site logins...</i></summary> <ul> <li>Set <a href="https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/wiki/Configuration#curl_user_agent"><code>CHROME_USER_AGENT</code>, <code>WGET_USER_AGENT</code>, <code>CURL_USER_AGENT</code></a> to impersonate a real browser (by default, ArchiveBox reveals that it's a bot when using the default user agent settings)</li> <li>Set up a logged-in browser session for archiving using <a href="https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/wiki/Chromium-Install#setting-up-a-chromium-user-profile"><code>CHROME_USER_DATA_DIR</code> & <code>COOKIES_FILE</code></a></li> <li>Rewrite your URLs before archiving to swap in alternative frontends that are more bot-friendly e.g.<code>reddit.com/some/url</code> -> <code>teddit.net/some/url</code>: <a href="https://github.com/mendel5/alternative-front-ends">https://github.com/mendel5/alternative-front-ends</a></li>
</ul>In the future we plan on adding support for running JS scripts during archiving to block ads, cookie popups, modals, and fix other issues. Follow here for progress: <a href="https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/issues/51">Issue #51</a>.
</details>ArchiveBox appends a hash with the current date https://example.com#2020-10-24 to differentiate when a single URL is archived multiple times.
Because ArchiveBox uniquely identifies snapshots by URL, it must use a workaround to take multiple snapshots of the same URL (otherwise they would show up as a single Snapshot entry). It makes the URLs of repeated snapshots unique by adding a hash with the archive date at the end:
<pre lang="bash"><code style="white-space: pre-line">archivebox add 'https://example.com#2020-10-24' ... archivebox add 'https://example.com#2020-10-25' </code></pre>The button in the Admin UI is a shortcut for this hash-date multi-snapshotting workaround.
Improved support for saving multiple snapshots of a single URL without this hash-date workaround will be <a href="https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/issues/179">added eventually</a> (along with the ability to view diffs of the changes between runs).
<h4>Learn More</h4> <ul> <li><a href="https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/issues/179">ArchiveBox Issues: #179</a></li> <li><a href="https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/wiki/Usage#explanation-of-buttons-in-the-web-ui---admin-snapshots-list">Wiki: Usage (Explanation of Web UI Buttons)</a></li> </ul> </details>Because ArchiveBox is designed to ingest a large volume of URLs with multiple copies of each URL stored by different 3rd-party tools, it can be quite disk-space intensive. There are also some special requirements when using filesystems like NFS/SMB/FUSE.
<details> <summary><i>Click to learn more about ArchiveBox's filesystem and hosting requirements...</i></summary> <ul> <li><strong>ArchiveBox can use anywhere from ~1gb per 1000 Snapshots, to ~50gb per 1000 Snapshots</strong>, mostly dependent on whether you're saving video/audio using <code>YTDLP_ENABLED=True</code> and whether you lower <code>YTDLP_MAX_SIZE=750m</code>.</li> <li>Disk usage can be reduced by using a compressed/<a href="https://www.ixsystems.com/blog/ixsystems-and-klara-systems-celebrate-valentines-day-with-a-heartfelt-donation-of-fast-dedupe-to-openzfs-and-truenas/">deduplicated</a> filesystem like <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/zfs/comments/t9cexx/a_simple_real_world_zfs_compression_speed_an/">ZFS</a>/BTRFS, or by turning off extractors methods you don't need. You can also deduplicate content with a tool like <a href="https://github.com/adrianlopezroche/fdupes"><code>fdupes</code></a> or <a href="https://github.com/pauldreik/rdfind"><code>rdfind</code></a>. </li> <li><strong>Don't store large collections on older filesystems like EXT3/FAT</strong> as they may not be able to handle more than 50k directory entries in the <code>data/archive/</code> folder. </li> <li><strong>Try to keep the <code>data/index.sqlite3</code> file on local drive (not a network mount)</strong> or SSD for maximum performance, however the <code>data/archive/</code> folder can be on a network mount or slower HDD.</li> <li>If using Docker or NFS/SMB/FUSE for the <code>data/archive/</code> folder, you may need to set <a href="https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/wiki/Configuration#puid--pgid"><code>PUID</code> & <code>PGID</code></a> and <a href="https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/issues/1304">disable <code>root_squash</code></a> on your fileshare server. </li> </ul> <h4>Learn More</h4> <ul> <li><a href="https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/wiki/Usage#Disk-Layout">Wiki: Usage (Disk Layout)</a></li> <li><a href="https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/wiki/Security-Overview#output-folder">Wiki: Security Overview (Output-Folder)</a></li> <li><a href="https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/wiki/Usage#large-archives">Wiki: Usage (Large Archives)</a></li> <li><a href="https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/wiki/Configuration#puid--pgid">Wiki: Configuration (<code>PUID</code> & <code>GUID</code>)</a></li> <li><a href="https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/wiki/Security-Overview#do-not-run-as-root">Wiki: Security Overview (Do Not Run as Root)</a></li> </ul> </details>ArchiveBox aims to enable more of the internet to be saved from deterioration by empowering people to self-host their own archives. The intent is for all the web content you care about to be viewable with common software in 50 - 100 years without needing to run ArchiveBox or other specialized software to replay it.
<details> <summary><i>Click to read more about why archiving is important and how to do it ethically...</i></summary>Vast treasure troves of knowledge are lost every day on the internet to link rot. As a society, we have an imperative to preserve some important parts of that treasure, just like we preserve our books, paintings, and music in physical libraries long after the originals go out of print or fade into obscurity.
Whether it's to resist censorship by saving news articles before they get taken down or edited, or just to save a collection of early 2010's flash games you loved to play, having the tools to archive internet content enables to you save the stuff you care most about before it disappears.
<div align="center" style="text-align: center"><sup><i>Image from <a href="https://perma.cc/">Perma.cc</a>...</i> </sup>
</div>The balance between the permanence and ephemeral nature of content on the internet is part of what makes it beautiful. I don't think everything should be preserved in an automated fashion--making all content permanent and never removable, but I do think people should be able to decide for themselves and effectively archive specific content that they care about, just like libraries do. Without the work of archivists saving physical books, manuscrips, and paintings we wouldn't have any knowledge of our ancestors' history. I believe archiving the web is just as important to provide the same benefit to future generations.
ArchiveBox's stance is that duplication of other people's content is only ethical if it:
In the U.S., <a href="https://guides.library.oregonstate.edu/copyright/libraries">libraries, researchers, and archivists</a> are allowed to duplicate copyrighted materials under <a href="https://libguides.ala.org/copyright/fairuse">"fair use"</a> for <a href="https://guides.cuny.edu/cunyfairuse/librarians#:~:text=One%20of%20these%20specified%20conditions,may%20be%20liable%20for%20copyright">private study, scholarship, or research</a>. Archive.org's non-profit preservation work is <a href="https://blog.archive.org/2024/03/01/fair-use-in-action-at-the-internet-archive/">covered under fair use</a> in the US, and they properly handle <a href="https://cardozoaelj.com/2015/03/20/use-of-copyright-law-to-take-down-revenge-porn/">unethical content</a>/<a href="https://help.archive.org/help/rights/">DMCA</a>/<a href="https://gdpr.eu/right-to-be-forgotten/#:~:text=An%20individual%20has%20the%20right,that%20individual%20withdraws%20their%20consent.">GDPR</a> removal requests to maintain good standing in the eyes of the law.
As long as you A. don't try to profit off pirating copyrighted content and B. have processes in place to respond to removal requests, many countries allow you to use sofware like ArchiveBox to ethically and responsibly archive any web content you can view. That being said, ArchiveBox is not liable for how you choose to operate the software. You must research your own local laws and regulations, and get proper legal council if you plan to host a public instance (start by putting your DMCA/GDPR contact info in <a href="https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/wiki/Configuration#footer_info"><code>FOOTER_INFO</code></a> and changing your instance's branding using <a href="https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/wiki/Configuration#custom_templates_dir"><code>CUSTOM_TEMPLATES_DIR</code></a>).
</details>Check out our community wiki for a list of alternative web archiving tools and orgs.
ArchiveBox gained momentum in the internet archiving industry because it uniquely combines 3 things:
ArchiveBox tries to be a robust, set-and-forget archiving solution suitable for archiving RSS feeds, bookmarks, or your entire browsing history (beware, it may be too big to store), including private/authenticated content that you wouldn't otherwise share with a centralized service like Archive.org.
<h3>Comparison With Centralized Public Archives</h3>Not all content is suitable to be archived on a centralized, publicly accessible platform. Archive.org doesn't offer the ability to save things behind login walls for good reason, as the content may not have been intended for a public audience. ArchiveBox exists to fill that gap by letting everyone save what they have access to on an individual basis, and to encourage decentralized archiving that's less succeptible to censorship or natural disasters.
By having users store their content locally or within their organizations, we can also save much larger portions of the internet than a centralized service has the disk capcity handle. The eventual goal is to work towards federated archiving where users can share portions of their collections with each other, and with central archives on a case-by-case basis.
<h3>Comparison With Other Self-Hosted Archiving Options</h3>ArchiveBox differentiates itself from similar self-hosted projects by providing both a comprehensive CLI interface for managing your archive, a Web UI that can be used either independently or together with the CLI, and a simple on-disk data format that can be used without either.
If you want better fidelity for very complex interactive pages with heavy JS/streams/API requests, check out ArchiveWeb.page and ReplayWeb.page.
If you want more bookmark categorization and note-taking features, check out Memex, Hoarder, LinkWarden, Archivy, or LinkAce.
If you need more advanced recursive spider/crawling ability beyond --depth=1, check out Browsertrix, Photon, or Scrapy and pipe the outputted URLs into ArchiveBox.
For more alternatives, see our list here...
ArchiveBox is neither the highest fidelity nor the simplest tool available for self-hosted archiving, rather it's a jack-of-all-trades that tries to do most things well by default. We encourage you to try these other tools made by our friends if ArchiveBox isn't suited to your needs.
</details> <!--<div align="center" style="text-align: center"> </div>-->iipc/awesome-web-archiving.Need help building a custom archiving solution?
<div align="center" style="text-align: center"> </div>✨ Hire the team that built Archivebox to solve archiving for your org. (@ArchiveBoxApp)
We use the ArchiveBox GitHub Wiki for documentation.
<sub>There is also a mirror available on <a href="https://archivebox.readthedocs.io/en/latest/">Read the Docs</a> (though it's sometimes outdated).</sub>
✏️ You can submit docs changes & suggestions in our dedicated repo
ArchiveBox/docs.
All contributions to ArchiveBox are welcomed! Check our issues and Roadmap for things to work on, and please open an issue to discuss your proposed implementation before working on things! Otherwise we may have to close your PR if it doesn't align with our roadmap.
For low hanging fruit / easy first tickets, see: <a href="https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aopen+sort%3Aupdated-desc+label%3A%22help+wanted%22">ArchiveBox/Issues #good first ticket #help wanted</a>.
Python API Documentation: https://docs.archivebox.io/en/dev/archivebox.html#module-archivebox.main
Internal Architecture Diagrams: https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/wiki/ArchiveBox-Architecture-Diagrams
git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox
cd ArchiveBox
git checkout dev # or the branch you want to test
git submodule update --init --recursive
git pull --recurse-submodules
# Install ArchiveBox + python dependencies
pip install uv
./bin/lock_pkgs.sh # (aka `uv venv; uv sync;` + generate requirements.txt)
source .venv/bin/activate # activate the venv
# Install ArchiveBox runtime dependencies
mkdir -p data && cd data
archivebox install # detect and install all extractor dependencies
# Run the development server w/ autoreloading (but no bg workers)
archivebox server --debug --reload 0.0.0.0:8000
# Run the production server (with bg workers but no autoreloading)
archivebox server 0.0.0.0:8000
# Optional: develop via docker by mounting the code dir into the container
# if you edit e.g. ./archivebox/core/models.py on the docker host, runserver
# inside the container will reload and pick up your changes
./bin/build_docker.sh dev
docker run -it -v $PWD/data:/data archivebox/archivebox:dev init --install
# Run the development server w/ autoreloading (but no bg workers)
docker run -it -v $PWD/data:/data -v $PWD/archivebox:/app/archivebox -p 8000:8000 archivebox/archivebox:dev server --debug --reload 0.0.0.0:8000
# Run the production server (with bg workers but no autoreloading)
docker run -it -v $PWD/data:/data -v $PWD/archivebox:/app/archivebox -p 8000:8000 archivebox/archivebox:dev server
# (remove the --reload flag and add the --nothreading flag when profiling with the django debug toolbar)
# When using --reload, make sure any files you create can be read by the user in the Docker container, eg with 'chmod a+rX'.
See the ./bin/ folder and read the source of the bash scripts within.
You can also run all these in Docker. For more examples see the GitHub Actions CI/CD tests that are run: .github/workflows/*.yaml.
# set up persistent DEBUG=True for all runs
archivebox config --set DEBUG=True
# OR you can run a dev server with DEBUG=True in a few ways:
archivebox server --debug --reload 0.0.0.0:8000
# or
archivebox server --debug 0.0.0.0:8000
# or
env DEBUG=True daphne -b 0.0.0.0 -p 8000 archivebox.core.asgi:application
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1074212/how-can-i-see-the-raw-sql-queries-django-is-running
</details>If you're looking for the latest dev Docker image, it's often available pre-built on Docker Hub, simply pull and use archivebox/archivebox:dev.
docker pull archivebox/archivebox:dev
docker run archivebox/archivebox:dev version
# verify the BUILD_TIME and COMMIT_HASH in the output are recent
You can also build and run any branch yourself from source, for example to build & use dev locally:
# docker-compose.yml:
services:
archivebox:
image: archivebox/archivebox:dev
build: 'https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox.git#dev'
...
# or with plain Docker:
docker build -t archivebox:dev https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox.git#dev
docker run -it -v $PWD:/data archivebox:dev init
# or with pip:
pip install 'git+https://github.com/pirate/ArchiveBox@dev'
npm install 'git+https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox.git#dev'
archivebox install
./bin/lint.sh
./bin/test.sh
(uses ruff, pyright, ty, and pytest -s)
# generate the database migrations after changes to models.py
cd archivebox/
./manage.py makemigrations
# enter a python shell or a SQL shell
cd path/to/test/data/
archivebox shell
archivebox manage dbshell
# generate a graph of the ORM models
brew install graphviz
pip install pydot graphviz
archivebox manage graph_models -a -o orm.png
open orm.png
# list all models with field db info and methods
archivebox manage list_model_info --all --signature --db-type --field-class
# print all django settings
archivebox manage print_settings
archivebox manage print_settings --format=yaml # pip install pyyaml
# autogenerate an admin.py from given app models
archivebox manage admin_generator core > core/admin.py
# dump db data to a script that re-populates it
archivebox manage dumpscript core > scripts/testdata.py
archivebox manage reset core
archivebox manage runscript testdata
# resetdb and clear all data!
archivebox manage reset_db
# use django-tui to interactively explore commands
pip install django-tui
# ensure django-tui is in INSTALLED_APPS: core/settings.py
archivebox manage tui
# show python and JS package dependency trees
pdm list --tree
npm ls --all
manage.py commands as TUI)ArchiveBox extractors are external binaries or Python/Node scripts that ArchiveBox runs to archive content on a page.
Extractors take the URL of a page to archive, write their output to the filesystem data/archive/TIMESTAMP/EXTRACTOR/..., and return an ArchiveResult entry which is saved to the database (visible on the Log page in the UI).
Check out how we added archivebox/extractors/singlefile.py as an example of the process: Issue #399 + PR #403.
The process to contribute a new extractor is like this:
[!IMPORTANT] This process is getting much easier after v0.8.x, there is a new plugin system under development: https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/releases/tag/v0.8.4-rc
apt, brew, pip3, npm
(Ideally, prefer to use external programs available via pip3 or npm, however we do support using any binary installable via package manager that exposes a CLI/Python API and writes output to stdout or the filesystem.)archivebox/extractors/EXTRACTOR.py (copy an existing extractor like singlefile.py as a template)USE_DEPENDENCYNAME, SAVE_EXTRACTORNAME, EXTRACTORNAME_SOMEOTHEROPTION in archivebox/config.pyarchivebox/templates/core/snapshot.html to view the output, and a column to archivebox/templates/core/index_row.html with an icon for your extractortests/test_extractors.py(Normally CI takes care of this, but these scripts can be run to do it manually)
./bin/build.sh
# or individually:
./bin/build_docs.sh
./bin/build_pip.sh
./bin/build_docker.sh
(Normally CI takes care of this, but these scripts can be run to do it manually)
./bin/release.sh
# or individually:
./bin/release_docs.sh
./bin/release_pip.sh
./bin/release_docker.sh
@ArchiveBoxApp, LinkedIn, YouTube, SaaSHub, Alternative.to, Reddit<a href="https://hcb.hackclub.com/donations/start/archivebox"></a> <a href="https://github.com/sponsors/pirate"></a> <a href="https://www.patreon.com/theSquashSH"></a> <a href="https://paypal.me/NicholasSweeting"></a> <a href="https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/wiki/Donations"></a> <a href="https://archivebox-shop.fourthwall.com/"></a>
<sup><i>ArchiveBox operates as a US 501(c)(3) nonprofit <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiscal_sponsorship">FSP</a> (sponsored by <a href="https://hackclub.com/hcb?ref=donation">HCB</a>), <a href="https://hcb.hackclub.com/donations/start/archivebox">direct donations</a> are tax-deductible.</i></sup>
<a href="https://twitter.com/ArchiveBoxApp"></a> <a href="https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox"></a> <a href="https://zulip.archivebox.io/"></a>
<hr/> <i>✨ Have spare CPU/disk/bandwidth after all your 网站存档爬 and want to help the world? Check out our <a href="https://github.com/ArchiveBox/good-karma-kit">Good Karma Kit</a>...</i> </div>