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HISTORY IS OUR FUTURE

Archiveteam.jpg

And we've been trashing our history

Archive Team is a loose collective of rogue archivists, programmers, writers and loudmouths dedicated to saving our digital heritage. Since 2009 this variant force of nature has caught wind of shutdowns, shutoffs, mergers, and plain old deletions - and done our best to save the history before it's lost forever. Along the way, we've gotten attention, resistance, press and discussion, but most importantly, we've gotten the message out: IT DOESN'T HAVE TO BE THIS WAY.

This website is intended to be an offloading point and information depot for a number of archiving projects, all related to saving websites or data that is in danger of being lost. Besides serving as a hub for team-based pulling down and mirroring of data, this site will provide advice on managing your own data and rescuing it from the brink of destruction.

Currently Active Projects (Get Involved Here!)

Archive Team recruiting

Warrior-based projects

ArchiveTeam's Choice: Telegram

Short-term, urgent projects

  • Cohost: A social media site shutting down at the end of 2024. IRC Channel #nohost (on hackint)
  • Veoh: A video hosting site shutting down on 2024-11-11. IRC Channel #veohnah (on hackint)
  • Nhentai: A hoster of hentai (pornographic manga) has repeatedly been in legal trouble and is being sued in the US. IRC Channel #177013 (on hackint)

Medium-term projects

(none currently)

Long-term projects

  • Telegram: Archiving public messages in various newsworthy and/or otherwise notable Telegram channels. IRC Channel #telegrab (on hackint).
  • Tor URLs: A random collection of stuff, but from Tor .onion URLs. IRC Channel #// (on hackint).
  • URLTeam: URL shorteners were a fucking awful idea. IRC Channel #urlteam (on hackint).
  • URLs: A random collection of stuff. IRC Channel #// (on hackint).
  • YouTube: Archiving selected videos. IRC Channel #down-the-tube (on hackint).

Long-term, slower-paced projects

These are projects that are actively running but generally only have small numbers of items available to complete at a time.


An updated Warrior virtual appliance (v3.2, v4.0) is now available with better support for newer projects that utilize wget-at.

Manual projects

  • ArchiveBot: For those with lots of disk space, bandwidth and long-term commitment. IRC Channel #archivebot (on hackint).
  • Codearchiver: Dumping and archival of source code repositories and associated version control systems. IRC Channel #codearchiver (on hackint).
  • Dead people: When people die, their webpages and/or social media might go "Poof!" due to fees and other knick-knack. IRC Channel #archiveteam (on hackint)
  • WikiTeam: Saving wikis dumps (XML). And their external links for the Wayback Machine (WARC) as well as exporting MediaWiki databases. Permanent effort, everyone can help (you choose the size of your downloads). IRC Channel #wikiteam (on hackint).

Upcoming & proposed projects

Recently finished projects

On Hiatus

  • Angelfire: Angelfire is a web hosting service that contains big chunks of early WWW history and has no proper backup. IRC Channel #angelonfire (on hackint).
  • Audit 2014: It's time to verify our shit. IRC Channel #auditteam (on hackint).
  • Flickr: Yahoo! SmugMug decided to kill it after finding Yahoo!'s plans to do so before they were bought by Verizon. IRC Channel #flickrfckr (on hackint).
  • FTP: Help us find and download all FTP sites! IRC Channel #effteepee (on hackint).
  • Google Drive: Same as MediaFire. IRC Channel #googlecrash (on hackint). Currently on hiatus.
  • Google Groups: "Gone within a year" (SketchCow, 2016-06-07).
  • Google News Archive: Let's store all newspapers at Google, WCGW? IRC Channel #papersplease (on hackint).
  • INTERNETARCHIVE.BAK: Grab a slice of the big cake of The Archive! IRC Channel #internetarchive.bak (on hackint).
  • ISP Hosting: Finding ISP web hosting services before the Grim Reaper finds them. IRC Channel #webroasting (on hackint).
  • Miraheze: Shutting down sometime between 2023-09-01 and 2023-10-31. Rescued by new volunteers!
  • Project Newsletter: Archiving e-newsletters, currently in development. IRC Channel #projectnewsletter (on hackint).
  • Quizlet: Flashcards and other learning tools IRC Channel #quizletusin (on hackint).
  • Tinkercad: Autodesk announced its intent to put designs from inactive OAuth accounts back into minds around 2021-05-24. IRC Channel #tinkerhad (on hackint).
  • Tumblr: Yahoo! considered killing it, now Yahoo has been acquired and Verizon declared war on NSFW blogs. Tumblr has since been sold to Automattic. IRC Channel #tumbledown (on hackint).
  • Reddit: Banning communities that generate bad PR for Reddit Inc. Restricted access to APIs and data on 2023-06-19. IRC Channel #shreddit (on hackint).

ArchiveTeam uses the hackint IRC network – ircs://irc.hackint.org:6697 (TLS required) – webchat: https://webirc.hackint.org/More info

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What is What

  • Deathwatch is where we keep track of sites that are sickly, dying or dead.
  • Fire Drill is where we keep track of sites that seem fine but a lot depends on them.
  • Projects is a comprehensive list of AT endeavors.
  • Philosophy describes the ideas underpinning our work.

Some Starting Points

  • Software will assist you in regaining control of your data by providing tools for information backup, archiving and distribution.
  • Formats will familiarize you with the various data formats, and how to ensure your files will be readable in the future.
  • Storage Media is about where to get it, what to get, and how to use it.

Quote of the Moment

"[Yahoo!] found the way to destroy the most massive amount of history in the shortest amount of time with absolutely no recourse"

Internet Atrocity! GeoCities' Demise Erases Web History
By Dan Fletcher, TIME Magazine, Monday, 2009-11-09

In The Media

Lennart Mühlenmeier, Netzpolitik, 2023-07-26
Lennart Mühlenmeier, Netzpolitik, 2023-07-26
Ernie Smith, Motherboard, 2023-05-15
Adi Robertson, The Verge, 2023-05-08
Ernie Smith, Motherboard, 2023-04-27
Maya Posh, Hackaday, 2023-03-31
Tommaso Meo, Wired Italia, 2022-03-25
Karl Bode, VICE, 2022-02-28
Chris Stokel-Walker, Input, 2022-02-18
Kaitlyn Tiffany, The Atlantic, 2021-04-25
More...

Archive Team is in no way affiliated with the fine folks at ARCHIVE.ORG Archive Team can always be reached by e-mail at archiveteam@archiveteam.org or by IRC at the channel #archiveteam (on hackint).