Wayback Archive History - Capture Metadata & Changes

Find historical evidence without downloading whole websites. Give this Actor an exact URL and receive a small, structured window of Wayback capture metadata: capture date, original URL, HTTP status, MIME type, content digest, archive record length and a replay link.

Useful for

• SEO and migration teams investigating historical URL coverage.
• Due-diligence analysts collecting dated source references.
• AI research workflows that need capture timestamps and provenance before retrieving content.

Start in one minute

1. Paste up to five exact public URLs.
2. Choose a capture window and optional date range.
3. Run, then inspect the Dataset and readable Run report. Export JSON or CSV.

Copy an input

Latest example.com captures

Inspect up to three recent indexed captures of one exact URL.

{
  "urls": [
    "https://example.com/"
  ],
  "capturesPerUrl": 3,
  "maxResults": 3
}

Two-domain archive check

Get one recent capture for each of two exact URLs.

{
  "urls": [
    "https://example.com/",
    "https://example.net/"
  ],
  "capturesPerUrl": 1,
  "maxResults": 2
}

Historical 2020 window

Inspect a bounded historical capture window, independent of current live content.

{
  "urls": [
    "https://example.com/"
  ],
  "fromDate": "2020-01-01",
  "toDate": "2020-12-31",
  "capturesPerUrl": 3,
  "maxResults": 3
}

What the results mean

capturedAt is the archive timestamp. observedAt is when this tool queried the index. digest is the source CDX digest, not a newly verified page hash. archiveLength is the CDX archive-record length, not the size of a live page. replayUrl is a constructed source link; this tool does not fetch it or guarantee replay availability.

Only HTTP200 captures are selected. Exact URL means the CDX canonical match: the archive can group scheme, www, path letter case and query-parameter order variants. Original URLs are preserved verbatim, and nondefault ports or unrelated hosts/paths are rejected. The CDX API uses fast latest lookup. It may return fewer than the requested captures. SUMMARY.sourceCoverage records returned and saved counts. Empty matching windows are valid; blocked, malformed and timed-out responses are failures rather than empty results.

Track new observations

Set comparePrevious: true and reuse snapshotName. A complete first run saves a baseline; later output reports new, changed or unchanged with changed fields and prior values. onlyChanges: true suppresses unchanged rows. URL list, date filters, capture limit and snapshot name define the scope. Incomplete output, source errors, time limits and charge limits do not advance history. Avoid simultaneous writers to one snapshot; conflict detection prevents overwriting a changed baseline. Missing captures are never labelled removed.

Pricing and limits

Base pricing: $0.002 per saved capture, plus $0.00005 Actor start; platform tier discounts are shown in the Store. Three captures cost $0.00605 before any platform-specific adjustments. You pay for observations saved, including unchanged rows unless onlyChanges is enabled. Maximum five URLs, twenty captures per URL, one hundred saved rows and a 120-second source budget.

Deliberate scope

No page-text extraction, full-site archive crawling, wildcard/domain enumeration, historical completeness guarantee or live-website availability check. This independent tool is not affiliated with the Internet Archive. Access restrictions and source delays are reported honestly. No API key required.

API and automation

Use the Apify API, saved Tasks, schedules or the Apify MCP integration with the same JSON input. Export the Dataset to your spreadsheet or pipeline; use SUMMARY to decide whether a run is complete.

Official Wayback documentation · CDX API reference · Mayd It data tools

Questions or a source-format change? Open an issue on this Actor with a public URL and run ID. Never post credentials.