{"slug": "internet-archive", "name": "Internet Archive", "category": "terminal", "category_name": "Terminal and shell", "description": "", "recommenders": 4, "commenters": 11, "warners": 4, "score": 0.276, "rising": 0.02, "first": "2026-01-15", "latest": "2026-09-07", "why": "Internet Archive; has the easy drag and drop of a folder and then type in some metadata for the entire release", "why_is_quote": true, "has_verdict": false, "sentiment": {"recommend": 4, "neutral": 3, "compare": 1, "warn": 4}, "spark": [0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 1, 1, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0], "listed": true, "loved": [], "caveat": "", "short_quote": "Internet Archive; has the easy drag and drop of a folder and then type in some metadata for the entire release", "kind": "", "icon": true, "domain": "archive.org", "github_repo": null, "official_url": "https://archive.org/", "pricing": "", "aliases": ["Internet Archive", "internetarchive"], "verdict": null, "praise": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 789010960, "item_id": 49313185, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49313185", "by": "earworms", "date": "2026-08-15", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Internet Archive; has the easy drag and drop of a folder and then type in some metadata for the entire release", "excerpt": "Yes. Soundcloud has a 3 hour limit; meaning with my 200 hours of music, i would require a lot of accounts, and i have a song that is 3 hours and 5 minutes long. And i have songs that are as short as 4 seconds long. Bandcamp has a limit on the size of files you upload; which make it even more difficult as a lot of my songs are longer than 25 minutes. (which is precisely the amount their limit is.) Then if you sell som", "context": "musician with 200 hours of music", "use_case": "hosting music albums", "switched_from": "", "story": "Alternative to Internet Archive"}, {"id": 772257968, "item_id": 48266123, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48266123", "by": "palewire", "date": "2026-05-25", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "will almost certainly outlive my site.", "excerpt": "FWIW, the site now indexes 13,000 graphics and 3,000 illustrations, which I clawed out of the Wayback Machine's HTML and preserved separately in an archive.org collection. https://fivethirtyeightindex.com/graphics/ https://fivethirtyeightindex.com/illustrations/ The archive.org backend is at https://archive.org/details/fivethirtyeight-collection and will almost certainly outlive my site.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ben Welsh made an index of all FiveThirtyEight articles on the Internet Archive"}, {"id": 746207872, "item_id": 46637992, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46637992", "by": "toomuchtodo", "date": "2026-01-15", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "ia search 'format:\"Archive BitTorrent\"' --itemlist > itemlist.txt", "excerpt": "Pick the items you want to mirror and seed them via their torrent file. https://github.com/jjjake/internetarchive https://archive.org/services/docs/api/internetarchive/cli.html ia search 'format:\"Archive BitTorrent\"' --itemlist > itemlist.txt Note that there will be more than 50M items returned by this query, so that command will take a very long time to complete (results are returned in 10k chunks). You'll probably ", "context": "", "use_case": "Bulk-listing and downloading archive items", "switched_from": "", "story": null}]}], "caveats": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 769232320, "item_id": 48077020, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48077020", "by": "badlibrarian", "date": "2026-05-09", "stance": "warn", "quote": "absurdly awful archive.org front and backend", "excerpt": "Internet Archive runs a completely separate version of their site for paying institutional clients. https://archive-it.org/ In a best case scenario, this eventually becomes the replacement for the (lets be honest) absurdly awful archive.org front and backend. So: an expansion into the EU market. And yes, a honeypot for grant funds, because why not? Good for them.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Internet Archive Switzerland"}, {"id": 759477120, "item_id": 47467320, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47467320", "by": "danrl", "date": "2026-03-21", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Internet Archive says: > We see the future of web archiving relying less on robots.txt", "excerpt": "> they would likely obey robots.txt If only... Despite providing a useful service, they are not as nice towards site owners as one would hope. Internet Archive says: > We see the future of web archiving relying less on robots.txt file declarations geared toward search engines https://blog.archive.org/2017/04/17/robots-txt-meant-for-search-engines-dont-work-well-for-web-archives/ They are not alone in that. The \"Archi", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Blocking Internet Archive Won't Stop AI, but Will Erase Web's Historical Record"}, {"id": 753578544, "item_id": 47098659, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47098659", "by": "snigsnog", "date": "2026-02-21", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Nonstarter for anything that you actually want to be preserved, especially anything controversial.", "excerpt": "No it doesn't. You can just request content be removed from Archive.org and they will honor this: https://help.archive.org/help/how-do-i-request-to-remove-something-from-archive-org/ Nonstarter for anything that you actually want to be preserved, especially anything controversial.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Wikipedia bans Archive.today after site executed DDoS and altered web captures"}, {"id": 746092673, "item_id": 46630792, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46630792", "by": "jijijijij", "date": "2026-01-15", "stance": "warn", "quote": "archive.org certainly isn't trustworthy with respect to US political influence.", "excerpt": "There are different scenarios and different needs. Trust-wise, the enemy of your enemy may be your friend. Dodging legal liability can be an asset too, if you are dealing with evidence against the government, or powerful people within your jurisdiction. Wikileaks fills a similar role. And archive.org certainly isn't trustworthy with respect to US political influence. They are trying to rewrite history, they will purg", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Weird Archive.today Behavior?"}]}], "who": [{"by": "earworms", "context": "musician with 200 hours of music", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49313185", "date": "2026-08-15"}], "tags": [], "use_cases": ["hosting music albums", "web page archiving", "bulk-listing and downloading archive items"], "compared": [{"slug": "archive-today", "name": "archive.today", "co": 3, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}], "makers": [], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47092006", "title": "Wikipedia bans Archive.today after site executed DDoS and altered web captures", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49593563", "title": "Keep Our Servers Running", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49309061", "title": "Alternative to Internet Archive", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48201973", "title": "Ben Welsh made an index of all FiveThirtyEight articles on the Internet Archive", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48075590", "title": "Show HN: A search engine for deleted YouTube videos (1.5B+ indexed since 2005)", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48074265", "title": "Internet Archive Switzerland", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {}, "2025-12": {}, "2026-01": {"warn": 1, "recommend": 1}, "2026-02": {"neutral": 1, "warn": 1}, "2026-03": {"compare": 1, "warn": 1}, "2026-04": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-05": {"warn": 1, "neutral": 1, "recommend": 1}, "2026-06": {}, "2026-07": {}, "2026-08": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-09": {"neutral": 1}, "2026-10": {}}, "quotes": [{"id": 793499681, "item_id": 49593730, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49593730", "by": "Cider9986", "date": "2026-09-07", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "It's annoying how often archive.org blocks sites but they both complement each other very well.", "excerpt": "THere's also archive.today who does great user-directed archiving. We don't appreciate this infrastructure some random guy runs enough. It's annoying how often archive.org blocks sites but they both complement each other very well. https://liberapay.com/archiveis/donate https://coindrop.to/archive When finding archive.today's Monero donation address just now, I had to use archive.org because donatemonero.org [1] is d", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Keep Our Servers Running"}, {"id": 789010960, "item_id": 49313185, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49313185", "by": "earworms", "date": "2026-08-15", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Internet Archive; has the easy drag and drop of a folder and then type in some metadata for the entire release", "excerpt": "Yes. Soundcloud has a 3 hour limit; meaning with my 200 hours of music, i would require a lot of accounts, and i have a song that is 3 hours and 5 minutes long. And i have songs that are as short as 4 seconds long. Bandcamp has a limit on the size of files you upload; which make it even more difficult as a lot of my songs are longer than 25 minutes. (which is precisely the amount their limit is.) Then if you sell som", "context": "musician with 200 hours of music", "use_case": "hosting music albums", "switched_from": "", "story": "Alternative to Internet Archive"}, {"id": 772257968, "item_id": 48266123, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48266123", "by": "palewire", "date": "2026-05-25", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "will almost certainly outlive my site.", "excerpt": "FWIW, the site now indexes 13,000 graphics and 3,000 illustrations, which I clawed out of the Wayback Machine's HTML and preserved separately in an archive.org collection. https://fivethirtyeightindex.com/graphics/ https://fivethirtyeightindex.com/illustrations/ The archive.org backend is at https://archive.org/details/fivethirtyeight-collection and will almost certainly outlive my site.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ben Welsh made an index of all FiveThirtyEight articles on the Internet Archive"}, {"id": 769879680, "item_id": 48117480, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48117480", "by": "stevenicr", "date": "2026-05-12", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I put the url wayback machine at top of this post", "excerpt": "oh wow, hadn't even thought of that! I put the url wayback machine at top of this post:https://steveiscritical.com/05/youtube-ui-ux-fail-delete-accident/ It's the 'rook' playlist that got deleted, ( when trying to edit playlist to change not so great thumbnail. )", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: A search engine for deleted YouTube videos (1.5B+ indexed since 2005)"}, {"id": 769232320, "item_id": 48077020, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48077020", "by": "badlibrarian", "date": "2026-05-09", "stance": "warn", "quote": "absurdly awful archive.org front and backend", "excerpt": "Internet Archive runs a completely separate version of their site for paying institutional clients. https://archive-it.org/ In a best case scenario, this eventually becomes the replacement for the (lets be honest) absurdly awful archive.org front and backend. So: an expansion into the EU market. And yes, a honeypot for grant funds, because why not? Good for them.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Internet Archive Switzerland"}, {"id": 764299008, "item_id": 47768688, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47768688", "by": "Projectiboga", "date": "2026-04-14", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "", "excerpt": "This is a fun area, as the DMCA, for its flaws included a loophole for non-commercial distribution of live concert recordings. The only requirement is that it isn't an exact copy of a commercial release. I am not sure about the exact standards, as live albums often aren't the entire concert. Here are some other sites where people share these tapes. http://www.thetradersden.org/ https://sugarmegs.org/ http://www.dimea", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Rare concert records going on Internet Archive"}, {"id": 759477120, "item_id": 47467320, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47467320", "by": "danrl", "date": "2026-03-21", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Internet Archive says: > We see the future of web archiving relying less on robots.txt", "excerpt": "> they would likely obey robots.txt If only... Despite providing a useful service, they are not as nice towards site owners as one would hope. Internet Archive says: > We see the future of web archiving relying less on robots.txt file declarations geared toward search engines https://blog.archive.org/2017/04/17/robots-txt-meant-for-search-engines-dont-work-well-for-web-archives/ They are not alone in that. The \"Archi", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Blocking Internet Archive Won't Stop AI, but Will Erase Web's Historical Record"}, {"id": 756523296, "item_id": 47282706, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47282706", "by": "observationist", "date": "2026-03-06", "stance": "compare", "quote": "archive.org is great, but unreliable in ways that archive.is et al are not", "excerpt": "The editing they do in self preservation is understandable, and far less wrong than having to kowtow to political pressure and private influence; archive.org is great, but unreliable in ways that archive.is et al are not. They're both very useful, in complementary ways. I even think what archive.is did to their detractor was understandable - in poor taste, definitely black hat, don't do stuff like that, immature as h", "context": "", "use_case": "web page archiving", "switched_from": "", "story": "Good Bad ISPs"}, {"id": 753578544, "item_id": 47098659, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47098659", "by": "snigsnog", "date": "2026-02-21", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Nonstarter for anything that you actually want to be preserved, especially anything controversial.", "excerpt": "No it doesn't. You can just request content be removed from Archive.org and they will honor this: https://help.archive.org/help/how-do-i-request-to-remove-something-from-archive-org/ Nonstarter for anything that you actually want to be preserved, especially anything controversial.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Wikipedia bans Archive.today after site executed DDoS and altered web captures"}, {"id": 753502544, "item_id": 47093909, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47093909", "by": "toomuchtodo", "date": "2026-02-20", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Archive.org is the archiver", "excerpt": "Archive.org is the archiver, rotted links are replaced by Archive.org links with a bot. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/InternetArchiveBot https://github.com/internetarchive/internetarchivebot", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Wikipedia bans Archive.today after site executed DDoS and altered web captures"}, {"id": 746207872, "item_id": 46637992, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46637992", "by": "toomuchtodo", "date": "2026-01-15", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "ia search 'format:\"Archive BitTorrent\"' --itemlist > itemlist.txt", "excerpt": "Pick the items you want to mirror and seed them via their torrent file. https://github.com/jjjake/internetarchive https://archive.org/services/docs/api/internetarchive/cli.html ia search 'format:\"Archive BitTorrent\"' --itemlist > itemlist.txt Note that there will be more than 50M items returned by this query, so that command will take a very long time to complete (results are returned in 10k chunks). You'll probably ", "context": "", "use_case": "Bulk-listing and downloading archive items", "switched_from": "", "story": null}, {"id": 746092673, "item_id": 46630792, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46630792", "by": "jijijijij", "date": "2026-01-15", "stance": "warn", "quote": "archive.org certainly isn't trustworthy with respect to US political influence.", "excerpt": "There are different scenarios and different needs. Trust-wise, the enemy of your enemy may be your friend. Dodging legal liability can be an asset too, if you are dealing with evidence against the government, or powerful people within your jurisdiction. Wikileaks fills a similar role. And archive.org certainly isn't trustworthy with respect to US political influence. They are trying to rewrite history, they will purg", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Weird Archive.today Behavior?"}]}