HISTORY IS OUR FUTURE

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

• Help us:☞ Download and run your warrior ☜. What's on:online tracker.
• Donate to keep our projects going.
• Anything shutting down? Put it on theDeathwatch or tell us onIRC!
• Want to code for Archive Team?Here's a starting point.

Warrior-based projects

Short-term, urgent projects

• Tistory: Will delete inactive blogs on2025-09-22IRC Channel#tatteredstory (on hackint)

Medium-term projects

• Meta Ad Library: Database for advertisements for Facebook and other products by Meta.IRC Channel#fads (on hackint)
• Peing: A Japanese question/answer service, was slated to be shutdown on2025-08-29.IRC Channel#peingpong (on hackint)
• US Government: Archiving the US government.IRC Channel#UncleSamsArchive (on hackint)
  • Radio Free Asia: Non-profit media organization owned by USAGM.
  • Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty: Non-profit media organization owned by USAGM.
  • Voice of America: An internationally-broadcasting state media network at risk of closure.

Long-term projects

• Telegram: Archiving public messages in various newsworthy and/or otherwise notable Telegram channels.IRC Channel#telegrab (on hackint).
• Twitch: Archiving metadata and select videos.IRC Channel#burnthetwitch (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: Archivingselected 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.

• Blogger: Grabbing inactive Blogger blogs since Google began a mass purge of inactive Google accounts on or after2023-12-01.IRC Channel#frogger (on hackint).
• GitHub: Embraced-uh, I mean, bought by Microsoft.IRC Channel#gitgud (on hackint).
• Imgur: Unregistered users' "old" and "inactive" images will be purged, and all NSFW content is being shown the door on2023-05-15.IRC Channel#imgone (on hackint).
• MediaFire:Not 'at-risk' but grabbing speculatively to save historic filesIRC Channel#mediaonfire (on hackint).
• Microsoft Update: Removal of legacy Windows drivers announced.IRC Channel#windowfixer (on hackint)
• Pastebin: Archiving the pastas.IRC Channel#pastalavista (on hackint).

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)
• Wikibot andWikiTeam: 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 Channels#wikibot (on hackint)#wikiteam (on hackint).
• File Formats andJust Solve: Let's Document all the File Formats! also has contents on the likes of subdomains, e.g.fileformats.archiveteam.org andjustsolve.archiveteam.org.IRC Channels#justsolve (on hackint)

Recently finished projects

• Typepad: A blogging service ceased to exist by the end of September 2025.IRC Channel#typebad (on hackint)

Upcoming & proposed projects

• Goo Blog: A blogging service closed on2025-11-25IRC Channel#itsgoone (on hackint)
• Chrome Web Store: Google has announced a timeline of policy changes that will lead to content being removed between2021-12-01 and 2025.IRC Channel#chromeweblore (on hackint).
• Photobucket: Finally following through on over a year of email threats that free accounts are going to be mass deactivated if they don't pay up.IRC Channel#photosucket (on hackint).
• Abandoned iOS App Store & Google Play apps: Both Apple and Google are slimming down on abandoned apps,with an estimated ~1.5M of them at risk.IRC Channel#appocalypse (on hackint).
• Twitter: General instability; deleting inactive accounts2019-12-11 sometime.IRC Channel#archiveteam-bs (on hackint).
• Dailymotion: Archiving inactive videos.IRC Channel#DailyDemotion (on hackint)
• VKontakte: A Russian equivalent of Facebook carries the risk of tumbling down under the weight of sanctions as a result of the government's invasion of Ukraine.IRC Channel#lostkontakt (on hackint).
• JamiiForums: the Tanzanian government would like this gone.IRC Channel#archiveteam-bs (on hackint).
• LiveJournal: Very old, widely regarded as in decline, and has a lot of important stuff buried in it.IRC Channel#archiveteam-bs (on hackint).
• The Pirate Bay: Recently came back up, grabbing an archive for sanity's sake.IRC Channel#archiveteam-bs (on hackint).
• Valhalla: Where to store what even theInternet Archive doesn't have space for?IRC Channel#huntinggrounds (on hackint).
• Giphy: Bought byFacebookShutterstock, to be "integrated" (assimilated) intoInstagramhttps://news.knowyourmeme.com/news/facebook-to-buy-giphy

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 ofThe 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 between2023-09-01 and2023-10-31. Rescued by new volunteers!
• Project Newsletter: Archiving e-newsletters, currently in development.IRC Channel#projectnewsletter (on hackint).
• Quizlet: Flashcards and other learning toolsIRC Channel#quizletusin (on hackint).
• Tinkercad: Autodesk announced its intent to put designs from inactive OAuth accounts back into minds around2021-05-24.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 on2023-06-19.IRC Channel#shreddit (on hackint).

ArchiveTeam uses the hackint IRC network –ircs://irc.hackint.org:6697 (TLS required) – webchat:https://chat.hackint.org/#/connect?join=archiveteam-bs –More info

• Who We Are and how you can join our cause!

• 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.

• The Introduction is an overview of basic archiving methods.

• Why Back Up? Because they don't care about you.

• Back Up your Facebook Data Learn how to liberate your personal data from Facebook.

• 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.

• Recommended Reading links to others sites for further information.

• Frequently Asked Questions is where we answer common questions.

"[Yahoo!] found the way to destroy the most massive amount of historyin 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

• It's time to start backing up the web.

EposVox,YouTube,2025-02-14

• Shutdowns don’t stop during the weekends

Lennart Mühlenmeier,Netzpolitik,2023-07-26

• Shutdowns machen auch an den Wochenenden nicht Halt

Lennart Mühlenmeier,Netzpolitik,2023-07-26

• Archive Team Races to Save a Billion Imgur Files Before Porn Deletion Apocalypse

Ernie Smith,Motherboard,2023-05-15

• Something Awful is racing to save the best and worst of web history

Adi Robertson,The Verge,2023-05-08

• The Imgur Apocalypse Is Going to Break Large Parts of the Internet

Ernie Smith,Motherboard,2023-04-27

• Archiving The Entirety Of DPReview Before It’s Gone

Maya Posh,Hackaday,2023-03-31

• Internet Archive sta cercando di salvare i siti ucraini

Tommaso Meo,Wired Italia,2022-03-25

• Archivists Make Sure the Internet Doesn’t Forget Russia’s War on Ukraine

Karl Bode,VICE,2022-02-28

• Amid war fears, archivists are racing to preserve Ukraine’s internet

Chris Stokel-Walker,Input,2022-02-18

More...