# 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
# 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:dev init
# docker run -it -v $PWD:/data archivebox/archivebox:dev add 'https://example.com'
# docker run -it -v $PWD:/data archivebox/archivebox:dev help
# docker run -it -v $PWD:/data -p 8000:8000 archivebox/archivebox:dev


# Option C: Or install it with uv (see Quickstart below for apt, brew, and more)
uv tool install --python 3.13 --upgrade 'git+https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox.git@dev'
mkdir -p ~/archivebox/data && cd ~/archivebox/data
archivebox init
archivebox install
# 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

4. Next steps: Start the server then login to the Web UI http://archivebox.localhost: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:dev init

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

   docker run -v $PWD:/data -p 8000:8000 archivebox/archivebox:dev
   # 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:dev 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.

uv (macOS/Linux/BSD)

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

   uv tool install --python 3.13 --upgrade 'git+https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox.git@dev'
   archivebox version
   # install any missing extras shown using apt/brew/pkg/etc. see Wiki for instructions
   #    python@3.13 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     # instantialize a new collection
   archivebox install  # install all the runtime dependencies (e.g. chrome, single-file, yt-dlp, etc.)

4. Optional: Start the server then login to the Web UI http://archivebox.localhost: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 uv tool documentation for more details about this installation method.}

apt (Ubuntu/Debian/etc.)

1. Add the third-party ArchiveBox apt repo and install archivebox.

   echo 'deb [trusted=yes] https://archivebox.github.io/debian-archivebox dev main' | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/archivebox.list
   sudo apt update
   sudo apt install archivebox
   (cd /tmp && archivebox version)            # make sure the package is installed

2. Create a new empty directory and initialize your collection (can be anywhere).

   mkdir -p ~/archivebox
   sudo install -d -o archivebox -g archivebox ~/archivebox/data
   cd ~/archivebox/data
   archivebox init
   archivebox install
   archivebox add 'https://example.com'

   
   
3. Optional: Start the server then login to the Web UI http://archivebox.localhost: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

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 trust archivebox/archivebox
   brew install archivebox
   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
   archivebox install

4. Optional: Start the server then login to the Web UI http://archivebox.localhost: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 uv and Docker channels.

• Arch: yay -S archivebox (contributed by @imlonghao, maintained by @jasongodev)
• FreeBSD: curl -fsSL 'https://get.archivebox.io' | bash (uses pkg + uv 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
• Proxmox
• Yunohost
• Cloudron
• Saltbox
• Portainer
• AppImage
• Runtipi
• Umbrel (need contributors...)
• More: contribute another distribution...!

Paid hosting solutions (cloud VPS)

• (get hosting, support, and feature customization directly 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 uv-installed ArchiveBox and it's available in your $PATH first

# archivebox [subcommand] [--help]
mkdir -p ~/archivebox/data && cd ~/archivebox/data
archivebox init
archivebox install
archivebox add 'https://example.com'
archivebox version           # get archivebox version info + check dependencies
archivebox help              # get list of archivebox subcommands that can be run

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
docker compose run archivebox install
docker compose run archivebox version
docker compose run archivebox help
docker compose run archivebox add 'https://example.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:dev [subcommand] [--help]
docker run -v $PWD:/data -it archivebox/archivebox:dev init
docker run -v $PWD:/data -it archivebox/archivebox:dev install
docker run -v $PWD:/data -it archivebox/archivebox:dev version
docker run -v $PWD:/data -it archivebox/archivebox:dev help
docker run -v $PWD:/data -it archivebox/archivebox:dev add 'https://example.com'
# to start webserver: docker run -v $PWD:/data -it -p 8000:8000 archivebox/archivebox:dev

archivebox shell           # explore the Python library API in a REPL
sqlite3 ./index.sqlite3    # run SQL queries directly on your index
find ./archive/users -path '*/snapshots/*/*/*/index.html'  # inspect snapshot data directly

# 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:dev archivebox manage createsuperuser
docker run -v $PWD:/data -it -p 8000:8000 archivebox/archivebox:dev

^{Open http://web.archivebox.localhost:8000 for the public UI and http://admin.archivebox.localhost:8000 for the admin UI ➡️
Set BASE_URL to change the public base domain; web. and admin. subdomains are used automatically. BIND_ADDR only controls the local listen address.}

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 PERMISSIONS=public     # make newly added snapshots public
archivebox config --set PUBLIC_INDEX=True      # allow guests to see list of all snapshots
# or
docker compose run archivebox config --set PERMISSIONS=public

# restart the server to apply any config changes

archivebox add --depth=1 'https://example.com'                     # add a URL with uv-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:dev 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 edit ArchiveBox.conf and add this under its existing [ARCHIVING_CONFIG] section:
CHROME_BINARY=chromium
# OR
env CHROME_BINARY=chromium archivebox version   # 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

PUBLIC_INDEX=True          # default: True  whether anon users can view index
PERMISSIONS=public         # default: public visibility for newly added snapshots
PUBLIC_ADD_VIEW=False      # default: False whether anon users can add new URLs

USER_AGENT="Mozilla/5.0 ..."  # change this to get around bot blocking

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 >=3.13
• Backend: Django + Django-Ninja for REST API
• Frontend: Django Admin + Vanilla HTML, CSS, JS
• Web Server: Django + daphne (ASGI)
• Database: Django ORM saving to SQLite3 ./data/index.sqlite3
• Job Queue: Custom orchestrator using supervisord for worker management
• Build/test/lint: uv / pyright+ty+pytest / ruff
• Subdependencies: abxpkg 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 by hand. ArchiveBox resolves every extractor dependency through abxpkg: it uses a compatible host installation when one is already available, and otherwise installs and manages the dependency for you.

# install uv + archivebox first (see Quickstart instructions above)

archivebox install     # 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). Snapshot data is organized by user, date, domain, and UUID under data/archive/users/.

data/
    index.sqlite3
    ArchiveBox.conf
    archive/
        1617687755 -> users/admin/snapshots/20210406/example.com/SNAPSHOT_UUID/
        users/
            admin/
                snapshots/
                    20210406/
                        example.com/
                            SNAPSHOT_UUID/
                                index.html
                                index.jsonl
                                screenshot/screenshot.png
                                ytdlp/media/some_video.mp4
                                wget/warc/example.com.warc.gz
                                git/somerepo.git
                                ...

Each snapshot subfolder includes static metadata and plain extractor output files. ArchiveBox also maintains a backwards-compatible data/archive/TIMESTAMP symlink for each snapshot.

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.

# 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.html

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 (PERMISSIONS, PUBLIC_INDEX, 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'

# restrict the main index, Snapshot content, and Add Page to authenticated users as-needed:
archivebox config --set PUBLIC_INDEX=False
archivebox config --set PERMISSIONS=private
archivebox config --set PUBLIC_ADD_VIEW=False
archivebox manage createsuperuser

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: Personas (browser profiles and cookies)
• Wiki: Configuration (DEFAULT_PERSONA)

# Default: full replay on isolated snapshot subdomains
archivebox config --set SERVER_SECURITY_MODE=safe-subdomains-fullreplay

# Alternative for deployments without wildcard subdomains: disable JS replay
archivebox config --set SERVER_SECURITY_MODE=safe-onedomain-nojsreplay

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 do not need JavaScript-capable replay at all, you can also disable those extractors with:
archivebox config --set WGET_ENABLED=False DOM_ENABLED=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 by importing a dedicated browser profile into a persona
• 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.

Each re-archive creates a distinct Snapshot row for the same URL:

archivebox add 'https://example.com'
archivebox add --no-only-new 'https://example.com'

The button in the Admin UI performs the same explicit re-archive.

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 video/audio using YTDLP_ENABLED=True and whether you lower YTDLP_MAX_SIZE=750m.
• 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, make sure the mounted data directory is writable by its intended owner and consider disabling root_squash on your fileshare server.

Learn More

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