Wayback Machine Downloader

[garystu]

https://github.com/erlange/wbm-dl

You can use it to save local copies of old websites to your hard drive easily. If you want to really preserve something so badly you need the safety of a local copy, or want to browse old websites by rummaging through their file structure. Fair warning: It's a command line one. It's pretty easy, and i've put some instructions for fellow n00bs, because I also struggle with the command line.

Some instructions for fellow n00bs

People better at command-line shit than me can tell people how to use it better.

• I downloaded the stand alone executable, and moved it into the command line's default folder (windows/system32). This makes sure cmd can find and run the program without changing directories or fucking around. The website will save to a subfolder of system32, called websites. Be sure to run cmd as administrator so it can write to a location inside System32.
• People who know Command Line better don't have to do all that, changing directories is trivial, but its how I did it. Gawk at my bodge.
• Ok so if you don't know the first thing about the command line, type "cmd" into the start menu search box, and it'll show you the Command prompt app. That's what you use.

Once the executable is in system32, open up cmd as an administrator. You write

Code

wbm-dl http://website.com

into the prompt and it works away. Replace the URL with the archived website you want to save. Just enter the url plain, do

https://something.com and not https://web.archive.org/web/20040704034856/http://www.something.com/. The wbm-dl documention explains this. There are parameters you can use as well, you add those on after the URL. Read the official documentation for those.

• When cmd lets you enter a new command, your download is finished. Big websites can take a while, as you'd expect, so be patient!
• Once the download is complete, you should really move the files out of System32. To anywhere you want, really. Then, you can do as you please.

aside 1

This is very basic command line shit. Its just right for my baby level. I tried other command line downloaders but couldn't make them work, and I couldn't tell you why either. I don't know enough to diagnose the problem, if I did something wrong or they did something wrong. Nonetheless: This one works! So happy downloading!

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aside 2

In my travels, I tried WGET, and it doesn't work too well. It can't capture pages spread across multiple dates, which is a huge problem as the Wayback Machine is heavily split by dates.

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aside 3

Took me hours of downloading random shit the other day to find a Wayback Machine downloader that worked. I spent like 3 hours googling and downloading programs trying to find one that works, hopefully this can save somebody else some time.

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This is for Windows, I don't know if it works on other OS'. I know this forum has a lot of Linux users, and I can only ask they suggest solutions that work on Linux themselves ITT.

Feel free to add more Wayback Machine downloaders, better instructions, anything.   

This thread is about the Wayback Machine specifically, and not about the other parts of the Internet Archive's collection.