# Option A: Get ArchiveBox with Docker Compose (recommended):
mkdir -p ~/archivebox/data && cd ~/archivebox
curl -fsSL 'https://docker-compose.archivebox.io' > docker-compose.yml   # edit options in this file as-needed
docker compose run archivebox init --setup
# docker compose run archivebox add 'https://example.com'
# docker compose run archivebox help
# docker compose up




# Option B: Or use it as a plain Docker container:
mkdir -p ~/archivebox/data && cd ~/archivebox/data
docker run -it -v $PWD:/data archivebox/archivebox init --setup
# docker run -it -v $PWD:/data archivebox/archivebox add 'https://example.com'
# docker run -it -v $PWD:/data archivebox/archivebox help
# docker run -it -v $PWD:/data -p 8000:8000 archivebox/archivebox




# Option C: Or install it with your preferred pkg manager (see Quickstart below for apt, brew, and more)
pip install archivebox
mkdir -p ~/archivebox/data && cd ~/archivebox/data
archivebox init --setup
# archivebox add 'https://example.com'
# archivebox help
# archivebox server 0.0.0.0:8000




# Option D: Or use the optional auto setup script to install it
curl -fsSL 'https://get.archivebox.io' | bash

docker-compose (macOS/Linux/Windows)   👈  recommended   (click to expand)

1. Install Docker on your system (if not already installed).
2. Download the docker-compose.yml file into a new empty directory (can be anywhere).

   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
   

3. Run the initial setup to create an admin user (or set ADMIN_USER/PASS in docker-compose.yml)

   docker compose run archivebox init --setup
   

4. Next steps: Start the server then login to the Web UI http://127.0.0.1:8000 ⇢ Admin.

   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
   

   For more info, see Install: Docker Compose in the Wiki. ➡️

See below for more usage examples using the CLI, Web UI, or filesystem/SQL/Python to manage your archive.

docker run (macOS/Linux/Windows)

1. Install Docker on your system (if not already installed).
2. Create a new empty directory and initialize your collection (can be anywhere).

   mkdir -p ~/archivebox/data && cd ~/archivebox/data
   docker run -v $PWD:/data -it archivebox/archivebox init --setup
   

3. Optional: Start the server then login to the Web UI http://127.0.0.1:8000 ⇢ Admin.

   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
   

   For more info, see Install: Docker Compose in the Wiki. ➡️

See below for more usage examples using the CLI, Web UI, or filesystem/SQL/Python to manage your archive.

bash auto-setup script (macOS/Linux)

1. Install Docker on your system (optional, highly recommended but not required).
2. Run the automatic setup script.

   curl -fsSL 'https://get.archivebox.io' | bash

   For more info, see Install: Bare Metal in the Wiki. ➡️

See below for more usage examples using the CLI, Web UI, or filesystem/SQL/Python to manage your archive.

See setup.sh for the source code of the auto-install script.

See “Against curl | sh as an install method” blog post for my thoughts on the shortcomings of this install method.

pip (macOS/Linux/BSD)

1. Install Python >= v3.10 and Node >= v18 on your system (if not already installed).
2. Install the ArchiveBox package using pip3 (or pipx).

   pip3 install --upgrade archivebox yt-dlp playwright
   playwright install --with-deps chromium
   archivebox version
   # install any missing extras shown using apt/brew/pkg/etc. see Wiki for instructions
   #    [email protected] node curl wget git ripgrep ...
   

   See the Install: Bare Metal Wiki for full install instructions for each OS...
3. Create a new empty directory and initialize your collection (can be anywhere).

   mkdir -p ~/archivebox/data && cd ~/archivebox/data   # for example
   archivebox init --setup   # instantialize a new collection
   # (--setup auto-installs and link JS dependencies: singlefile, readability, mercury, etc.)
   

4. Optional: Start the server then login to the Web UI http://127.0.0.1:8000 ⇢ Admin.

   archivebox server 0.0.0.0:8000
   # completely optional, CLI can always be used without running a server
   # archivebox [subcommand] [--help]
   archivebox help
   

See below for more usage examples using the CLI, Web UI, or filesystem/SQL/Python to manage your archive.



_{See the pip-archivebox repo for more details about this distribution.}

brew (macOS only)

1. Install Homebrew on your system (if not already installed).
2. Install the ArchiveBox package using brew.

   brew tap archivebox/archivebox
   brew install archivebox
   # update to newest version with pip (sometimes brew package is outdated)
   pip install --upgrade --ignore-installed archivebox yt-dlp playwright
   playwright install --with-deps chromium    # install chromium and its system dependencies
   archivebox version                         # make sure all dependencies are installed
   

   See the Install: Bare Metal Wiki for more granular instructions for macOS... ➡️
3. Create a new empty directory and initialize your collection (can be anywhere).

   mkdir -p ~/archivebox/data && cd ~/archivebox/data
   archivebox init --setup
   

4. Optional: Start the server then login to the Web UI http://127.0.0.1:8000 ⇢ Admin.

   archivebox server 0.0.0.0:8000
   # completely optional, CLI can always be used without running a server
   # archivebox [subcommand] [--help]
   archivebox help
   

   
   

See below for more usage examples using the CLI, Web UI, or filesystem/SQL/Python to manage your archive.

_{See the homebrew-archivebox repo for more details about this distribution.}

pacman / pkg / nix (Arch/FreeBSD/NixOS/more)

Warning: These are contributed by external volunteers and may lag behind the official pip channel.

• Arch: yay -S archivebox (contributed by @imlonghao)
• FreeBSD: curl -fsSL 'https://get.archivebox.io' | bash (uses pkg + pip3 under-the-hood)
• Nix: nix-env --install archivebox (contributed by @siraben)
• Guix: guix install archivebox (contributed by @rakino)
• More: contribute another distribution...!

docker + electron Desktop App (macOS/Linux/Windows)

1. Install Docker on your system (if not already installed).
2. Download a binary release for your OS or build the native app from source
   
   • macOS: ArchiveBox.app.zip
   • Linux: ArchiveBox.deb (alpha: build manually)
   • Windows: ArchiveBox.exe (beta: build manually)

TrueNAS / UNRAID / YunoHost / Cloudron / etc. (self-hosting solutions)

Warning: These are contributed by external volunteers and may lag behind the official pip channel.

• TrueNAS: Official ArchiveBox TrueChart / Custom App Guide (TrueCharts is discontinued, wait for Electric Eel)
• UnRaid
• Yunohost
• Cloudron
• Saltbox
• Portainer
• AppImage
• Runtipi
• Umbrel (need contributors...)
• More: contribute another distribution...!

Paid hosting solutions (cloud VPS)

• (get hosting, support, and feature customization directy from us)
• (generalist consultancy that has ArchiveBox experience)

Other providers of paid ArchiveBox hosting (not officially endorsed):



• 
• (USD $29-250/mo, pricing)
• (from USD $2.6/mo)
• (USD $5-50+/mo, 🎗  referral link, instructions)
• (USD $2.5-50+/mo, 🎗  referral link, instructions)
• (USD $10-50+/mo, instructions)
• (USD $0-5+/mo)
• (USD $60-200+/mo)
• (USD $60-200+/mo)

_{Referral links marked 🎗 provide $5-10 of free credit for new users and help pay for our demo server hosting costs.}

For more discussion on managed and paid hosting options see here: Issue #531.

CLI Usage Examples: non-Docker

# make sure you have pip-installed ArchiveBox and it's available in your $PATH first  


# archivebox [subcommand] [--help]
archivebox init --setup      # safe to run init multiple times (also how you update versions)
archivebox version           # get archivebox version info + check dependencies
archivebox help              # get list of archivebox subcommands that can be run
archivebox add --depth=1 'https://news.ycombinator.com'

CLI Usage Examples: Docker Compose

# make sure you have `docker-compose.yml` from the Quickstart instructions first


# docker compose run archivebox [subcommand] [--help]
docker compose run archivebox init --setup
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

CLI Usage Examples: Docker

# 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 --setup
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

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

# 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 server


# Or with Docker Compose:
nano docker-compose.yml                        # setup initial ADMIN_USERNAME & ADMIN_PASSWORD
docker compose up                              # start the server


# Or with a Docker container:
docker run -v $PWD:/data -it archivebox/archivebox archivebox manage createsuperuser
docker run -v $PWD:/data -it -p 8000:8000 archivebox/archivebox

^{Open http://localhost:8000 to see your server’s Web UI ➡️}



For more info, see our Usage: Web UI wiki. ➡️



Optional: Change permissions to allow non-logged-in users

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

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

For more info, see our Docker wiki. ➡️

data/archive/{Snapshot.id}/

• Index: index.html & index.json HTML and JSON index files containing metadata and details
• Title, Favicon, Headers Response headers, site favicon, and parsed site title
• SingleFile: singlefile.html HTML snapshot rendered with headless Chrome using SingleFile
• Wget Clone: example.com/page-name.html wget clone of the site with warc/TIMESTAMP.gz
• Chrome Headless
  • PDF: output.pdf Printed PDF of site using headless chrome
  • Screenshot: screenshot.png 1440x900 screenshot of site using headless chrome
  • DOM Dump: output.html DOM Dump of the HTML after rendering using headless chrome
• Article Text: article.html/json Article text extraction using Readability & Mercury
• Archive.org Permalink: archive.org.txt A link to the saved site on archive.org
• Audio & Video: media/ all audio/video files + playlists, including subtitles & metadata w/ yt-dlp
• Source Code: git/ clone of any repository found on GitHub, Bitbucket, or GitLab links
• More coming soon! See the Roadmap...

archivebox config                               # view the entire config
archivebox config --get CHROME_BINARY           # view a specific value


archivebox config --set CHROME_BINARY=chromium  # persist a config using CLI
# OR
echo CHROME_BINARY=chromium >> ArchiveBox.conf  # persist a config using file
# OR
env CHROME_BINARY=chromium archivebox ...       # run with a one-off config

# e.g. archivebox config --set TIMEOUT=120
# or   docker compose run archivebox config --set TIMEOUT=120


TIMEOUT=240                # default: 60    add more seconds on slower networks
CHECK_SSL_VALIDITY=False   # default: True  False = allow saving URLs w/ bad SSL
SAVE_ARCHIVE_DOT_ORG=False # default: True  False = disable Archive.org saving
MAX_MEDIA_SIZE=1500m       # default: 750m  raise/lower youtubedl output size


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


CHROME_USER_AGENT="Mozilla/5.0 ..."  # change these to get around bot blocking
WGET_USER_AGENT="Mozilla/5.0 ..."
CURL_USER_AGENT="Mozilla/5.0 ..."

TIP: For better security while running ArchiveBox, and to avoid polluting your host system with a bunch of sub-dependencies that you need to keep up-to-date,it is strongly recommended to use the ⭐️ official Docker image which provides everything in an easy container with simple one-liner upgrades.

• Language: Python >=3.10
• Backend: Django + Django-Ninja for REST API
• Frontend: Django Admin + Vanilla HTML, CSS, JS
• Web Server: Django + channels + daphne]
• Database: Django ORM saving to SQLite3 ./data/index.sqlite
• Job Queue: Huey using ./data/queue.sqlite3 under supervisord
• Build/test/lint: pdm / mypy+pyright+pytest / ruff
• Subdependencies: abx-pkg installs apt/brew/pip/npm pkgs at runtime (e.g. yt-dlp, singlefile, readability, git)

These optional subdependencies used for archiving sites include:

• chromium / chrome (for screenshots, PDF, DOM HTML, and headless JS scripts)
• node & npm (for readability, mercury, and singlefile)
• wget (for plain HTML, static files, and WARC saving)
• curl (for fetching headers, favicon, and posting to Archive.org)
• yt-dlp or youtube-dl (for audio, video, and subtitles)
• git (for cloning git repos)
• singlefile (for saving into a self-contained html file)
• postlight/parser (for discussion threads, forums, and articles)
• readability (for articles and long text content)
• and more as we grow...

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 $PATH.

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.

#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 setup       # auto install all the extractors and extras
archivebox --version   # see info and check validity of installed dependencies

Installing directly on Windows without Docker or WSL/WSL2/Cygwin is not officially supported (I cannot respond to Windows support tickets), but some advanced users have reported getting it working.

Learn More

• Wiki: Install (Dependencies)
• Wiki: Chromium Install
• Wiki: Upgrading or Merging Archives
• Wiki: Troubleshooting (Installing)

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 archivebox CLI commands are designed to be run from inside an ArchiveBox data folder, starting with archivebox init to initialize a new collection inside an empty directory.

mkdir -p ~/archivebox/data && cd ~/archivebox/data   # just an example, can be anywhere
archivebox init

The on-disk layout is optimized to be easy to browse by hand and durable long-term. The main index is a standard index.sqlite3 database in the root of the data folder (it can also be exported as static JSON/HTML), and the archive snapshots are organized by date-added timestamp in the data/archive/ subfolder.

data/
    index.sqlite3
    ArchiveBox.conf
    archive/
        ...
        1617687755/
            index.html
            index.json
            screenshot.png
            media/some_video.mp4
            warc/1617687755.warc.gz
            git/somerepo.git
            ...

Each snapshot subfolder data/archive/TIMESTAMP/ includes a static index.json and index.html describing its contents, and the snapshot extractor outputs are plain files within the folder.

Learn More

• Wiki: Setting Up Storage (SMB, NFS, S3, B2, Google Drive, etc.)
• Wiki: Usage (Disk Layout)
• Wiki: Usage (Large Archives)
• Wiki: Security Overview (Output Folder)
• Wiki: Publishing Your Archive
• Wiki: Upgrading or Merging Archives

NOTE: These exports are not paginated, exporting many URLs or the entire archive at once may be slow. Use the filtering CLI flags on the archivebox list command to export specific Snapshots or ranges.

# do a one-off single URL archive wihout needing a data dir initialized
archivebox oneshot 'https://example.com'

# archivebox list --help
archivebox list --html --with-headers > index.html     # export to static html table
archivebox list --json --with-headers > index.json     # export to json blob
archivebox list --csv=timestamp,url,title > index.csv  # export to csv spreadsheet

# (if using Docker Compose, add the -T flag when piping)
# docker compose run -T archivebox list --html 'https://example.com' > index.json

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.

Learn More

• Wiki: Publishing Your Archive (Exporting as Static HTML)
• Wiki: Security Overview (Publishing)
• Wiki: Configuration (PUBLIC_INDEX, PUBLIC_SNAPSHOTS, PUBLIC_ADD_VIEW)

# don't save private content to ArchiveBox, e.g.:
archivebox add 'https://docs.google.com/document/d/12345somePrivateDocument'
archivebox add 'https://vimeo.com/somePrivateVideo'

# without first disabling saving to Archive.org:
archivebox config --set SAVE_ARCHIVE_DOT_ORG=False  # disable saving all URLs in Archive.org

# 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

# if extra paranoid or anti-Google:
archivebox config --set SAVE_FAVICON=False          # disable favicon fetching (it calls a Google API passing the URL's domain part only)
archivebox config --set CHROME_BINARY=chromium      # ensure it's using Chromium instead of Chrome

CAUTION: Assume anyone viewing your archives will be able to see any cookies, session tokens, or private URLs passed to ArchiveBox during archiving. Make sure to secure your ArchiveBox data and don't share snapshots with others without stripping out sensitive headers and content first.

Learn More

• Wiki: Publishing Your Archive
• Wiki: Security Overview
• Wiki: Chromium Install (Setting Up a User Profile)
• Wiki: Configuration (CHROME_USER_DATA_DIR)
• Wiki: Configuration (COOKIES_FILE)

# 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

NOTE: Only the wget & dom extractor methods execute archived JS when viewing snapshots, all other archive methods produce static output that does not execute JS on viewing.
If you are worried about these issues ^ you should disable these extractors using:
archivebox config --set SAVE_WGET=False SAVE_DOM=False.

Learn More

• Wiki: Security Overview
• ArchiveBox Github Issue: #239
• Security Advisory: CVE-2023-45815
• Wiki: Security Overview (Publishing)

• Set CHROME_USER_AGENT, WGET_USER_AGENT, CURL_USER_AGENT to impersonate a real browser (by default, ArchiveBox reveals that it's a bot when using the default user agent settings)
• Set up a logged-in browser session for archiving using CHROME_USER_DATA_DIR & COOKIES_FILE
• Rewrite your URLs before archiving to swap in alternative frontends that are more bot-friendly e.g.
  reddit.com/some/url -> teddit.net/some/url: https://github.com/mendel5/alternative-front-ends

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: Issue #51.

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:

archivebox add 'https://example.com#2020-10-24'
...
archivebox add 'https://example.com#2020-10-25'

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 added eventually (along with the ability to view diffs of the changes between runs).

Learn More

• ArchiveBox Issues: #179
• Wiki: Usage (Explanation of Web UI Buttons)

• ArchiveBox can use anywhere from ~1gb per 1000 Snapshots, to ~50gb per 1000 Snapshots, mostly dependent on whether you're saving audio & video using SAVE_MEDIA=True and whether you lower MEDIA_MAX_SIZE=750mb.
• Disk usage can be reduced by using a compressed/deduplicated filesystem like ZFS/BTRFS, or by turning off extractors methods you don't need. You can also deduplicate content with a tool like fdupes or rdfind.
• Don't store large collections on older filesystems like EXT3/FAT as they may not be able to handle more than 50k directory entries in the data/archive/ folder.
• Try to keep the data/index.sqlite3 file on local drive (not a network mount) or SSD for maximum performance, however the data/archive/ folder can be on a network mount or slower HDD.
• If using Docker or NFS/SMB/FUSE for the data/archive/ folder, you may need to set PUID & PGID and disable root_squash on your fileshare server.

Learn More

• Wiki: Usage (Disk Layout)
• Wiki: Security Overview (Output-Folder)
• Wiki: Usage (Large Archives)
• Wiki: Configuration (PUID & GUID)
• Wiki: Security Overview (Do Not Run as Root)

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.

^{Image from Perma.cc...}

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:

• A. doesn’t deprive the original creators of revenue and
• B. is responsibly curated by an individual/institution.

In the U.S., libraries, researchers, and archivists are allowed to duplicate copyrighted materials under “fair use” for private study, scholarship, or research. Archive.org’s non-profit preservation work is covered under fair use in the US, and they properly handle unethical content/DMCA/GDPR 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 FOOTER_INFO and changing your instance’s branding using CUSTOM_TEMPLATES_DIR).

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.

Comparison With Centralized Public Archives

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.

Comparison With Other Self-Hosted Archiving Options

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 Archivy, Memex, Polar, 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.

• Community Wiki
  • Web Archiving Software
    List of ArchiveBox alternatives and open source projects in the internet archiving space.
  • Awesome-Web-Archiving Lists
    Community-maintained indexes of archiving tools and institutions like iipc/awesome-web-archiving.
  • Reading List
    Articles, posts, and blogs relevant to ArchiveBox and web archiving in general.
  • Communities
    A collection of the most active internet archiving communities and initiatives.
• Check out the ArchiveBox Roadmap and Changelog
• Learn why archiving the internet is important by reading the “On the Importance of Web Archiving” blog post.
• Reach out to me for questions and comments via @ArchiveBoxApp or @theSquashSH on Twitter

1. Clone the main code repo (making sure to pull the submodules as well)

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

2. Option A: Install the Python, JS, and system dependencies directly on your machine

# Install ArchiveBox + python dependencies
pip install uv
uv venv
uv sync

archivebox init
archivebox setup

2. Option B: Build the docker container and use that for development instead

# 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
docker build . -t archivebox
docker run -it \
    -v $PWD/data:/data \
    archivebox init --setup
docker run -it -p 8000:8000 \
    -v $PWD/data:/data \
    -v $PWD/archivebox:/app/archivebox \
    archivebox server 0.0.0.0:8000 --debug --reload

# (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'.

archivebox config --set DEBUG=True
# or
archivebox server --debug ...
# faster dev version wo/ bg workers enabled:
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

Use a Pre-Built Image

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

Build Branch from Source

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 flake8, mypy, 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

• https://django-extensions.readthedocs.io/en/latest/command_extensions.html
• https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1074212/how-can-i-see-the-raw-sql-queries-django-is-running
• https://github.com/anze3db/django-tui (explore manage.py commands as TUI)
• https://github.com/bloomberg/memray (advanced python profiler)
• https://github.com/laixintao/flameshow (display flamegraphs in terminal)
• https://github.com/taliraj/django-migrations-tui (explore migrations 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

1. Open an issue with your propsoed implementation (please link to the pages of any new external dependencies you plan on using)
2. Ensure any dependencies needed are easily installable via a package managers like 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.)
3. Create a new file in archivebox/extractors/EXTRACTOR.py (copy an existing extractor like singlefile.py as a template)
4. Add config settings to enable/disable any new dependencies and the extractor as a whole, e.g. USE_DEPENDENCYNAME, SAVE_EXTRACTORNAME, EXTRACTORNAME_SOMEOTHEROPTION in archivebox/config.py
5. Add a preview section to archivebox/templates/core/snapshot.html to view the output, and a column to archivebox/templates/core/index_row.html with an icon for your extractor
6. Add an integration test for your extractor in tests/test_extractors.py
7. Submit your PR for review! 🎉
8. Once merged, please document it in these places and anywhere else you see info about other extractors:

• https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox#output-formats
• https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/wiki/Configuration#archive-method-toggles
• https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/wiki/Install#dependencies

(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