Wayback Machine Downloader

A Python port of the original Ruby wayback-machine-downloader, built for users who prefer a Python-based workflow for downloading archived websites from the Internet Archive Wayback Machine.

This tool helps recover, mirror, and archive old websites from Wayback Machine snapshots. It is useful for digital preservation, website recovery, static site restoration, OSINT research, historical web analysis, and rebuilding sites that are no longer online.

This Python version includes a number of extra fixes, improvements, and quality-of-life changes over the original Ruby implementation.

Highlights

• Download the latest capture of each file for a target
• Download every timestamped capture with timestamp-prefixed file IDs
• Build a composite snapshot as of a point in time
• Resume interrupted runs using .cdx.json and .downloaded.txt
• Rewrite archived links for local browsing with --local
• Discover linked page assets with --page-requisites
• Recursively mirror subdomains with --recursive-subdomains
• Keep the implementation dependency-light and fully testable offline

Requirements

• Python 3.10 or newer

Installation

Install the published package from PyPI:

python -m pip install wayback-machine-downloader

The PyPI distribution name is wayback-machine-downloader; the import package remains wayback_downloader.

Install the package in editable mode while developing:

python -m pip install -e .

Or run it directly from the repository:

python -m wayback_downloader --help

The package also exposes a console script after installation:

wayback-machine-downloader --help

Quick Start

Download the latest version of every file for a site:

python -m wayback_downloader https://example.com

List the planned captures without downloading:

python -m wayback_downloader --list https://example.com

Download all historical captures:

python -m wayback_downloader --all-timestamps https://example.com

Build a composite snapshot as of a specific timestamp:

python -m wayback_downloader --snapshot-at 20130101000000 https://example.com

Rewrite an existing downloaded tree for local browsing:

python -m wayback_downloader --local-only ./websites/example.com

Output Layout

By default, downloads are written under:

./websites/<backup-name>/

<backup-name> is usually the target host. For example:

websites/example.com/

The downloader also uses two state files in the output directory:

• .cdx.json Cached snapshot listing fetched from the CDX API.
• .downloaded.txt Logical file IDs that have been written successfully.

These files let later runs resume instead of starting from scratch. Use --reset to delete them before a run, or --keep to preserve them after a successful run.

Common Workflows

Download only one exact URL:

python -m wayback_downloader --exact-url https://example.com/index.html

Limit by timestamp range:

python -m wayback_downloader --from 20060101 --to 20071231 https://example.com

Filter URLs:

python -m wayback_downloader --only "/\\.(css|js|png)$/i" https://example.com
python -m wayback_downloader --exclude admin https://example.com

Download pages and immediately queue linked assets:

python -m wayback_downloader --page-requisites --local https://example.com

Recursively mirror discovered subdomains:

python -m wayback_downloader --recursive-subdomains --subdomain-depth 2 https://example.com

Snapshot Selection Modes

The downloader supports three selection strategies:

1. Latest per logical file Default behavior. For each logical file ID, the newest capture wins.
2. All timestamps Enabled with --all-timestamps. The timestamp becomes part of the logical file ID so every capture is kept.
3. Composite snapshot Enabled with --snapshot-at. For each file, choose the newest capture at or before the requested timestamp.

URL and Filename Behavior

Several implementation details are worth knowing because they influence the output tree:

• Host and trailing-slash directory targets are normalized into CDX prefix queries unless --exact-url is used.
• Query strings are folded into filenames using a short digest, such as app__q12ab34cd56ef.css.
• Directory-like captures are stored as .../index.html.
• If a file blocks a needed directory later in the run, it is moved to index.html so both captures can coexist.

Local Rewriting

The --local option rewrites archived absolute URLs into local relative references after files are saved. It handles:

• Wayback-hosted rewritten URLs
• direct absolute HTTP/HTTPS links
• HTML attributes such as href, src, and action
• CSS url(...) references
• JavaScript string literals containing absolute URLs

--local-only performs only the rewrite phase on an existing directory and does not contact the archive.

Documentation

• CLI reference
• Architecture guide
• Development and testing

Publishing

Build and validate the distribution archives:

python -m pip install --upgrade build twine
python -m build
python -m twine check dist/*

Upload to TestPyPI first:

python -m twine upload --repository testpypi dist/*

Upload to PyPI:

python -m twine upload dist/*

Use an API token when Twine prompts for credentials:

• username: __token__
• password: your pypi-... token

Testing

Run the test suite:

python -B -m unittest discover -s tests -t .

Compile modules as a quick import sanity check:

python -m compileall wayback_downloader tests

The tests use fake transports and temporary directories, so they do not depend on live access to web.archive.org.