Internet Archive Scraper: Items and Metadata from archive.org

$1 per 1,000 items. Platform usage included. No rental, no minimum.

Open it in Apify Console

New to Apify? [Create a free account](https://www.apify.com?fpr=ymnoit) (referral link). Runs from a free plan account return the first 10 results; any paid plan returns everything you ask for, up to your limit.

What it costs

Items	Price
1,000	$1.00
10,000	$10.00
100,000	$100.00

Plus $0.001 per run. One flat price, platform usage included, so there is no separate compute or proxy bill. A weekly run that reads the 200 most recently added items of a collection costs $0.201 (200 results plus the run fee), about $0.80 for four weeks.

Why use it

• Items with their numbers. Each row has the title, creator, description, dates, media type, collections, subjects, languages, file formats, total size, file count and download counts.
• Search, filter or list by identifier. Use search words or the Internet Archive search syntax, narrow by collection, media type, creator and date range, or paste a list of item identifiers.
• Optional file list. Turn on the file list to get each item's files with name, format, size and a direct download link.
• Polite to the site. The Internet Archive asks automated tools to identify themselves, pause between requests and honour its rate limit signals. The actor does all three.
• Official APIs, no key. Data comes from the Internet Archive's search and item metadata APIs. No login, no token.

Quick start

1. Open the actor, type search words, press Start.
2. Or paste this input:

{ "searchQuery": "moon landing", "mediatypes": ["movies"], "sortBy": "downloads", "maxItems": 100 }

3. Download the results as JSON, CSV or Excel, or read them through the API.

Use it from code

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/one_dollar_store~internet-archive-items-scraper/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"searchQuery": "moon landing", "mediatypes": ["movies"], "maxItems": 50}'

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient("YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN")
run = client.actor("one_dollar_store/internet-archive-items-scraper").call(
    run_input={"searchQuery": "moon landing", "mediatypes": ["movies"], "maxItems": 50}
)
for item in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items():
    print(item["identifier"], item.get("downloads"), item["title"])

Use it from an AI assistant

Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor and other assistants can call this actor through Apify's MCP server. Add it with this server address:

https://mcp.apify.com?tools=one_dollar_store/internet-archive-items-scraper

Then ask, for example: "Find the 30 most downloaded videos about the moon landing on the Internet Archive and give me the identifier, title and year."

Switching from another Internet Archive actor

Most Internet Archive actors take a search query, a collection or an identifier list, and a result limit. Here they are searchQuery, collections, identifiers and maxItems. The core output fields are identifier, title, creator, mediaType, itemDate, downloads and itemUrl.

Input

Field	Type	Default	What it does
searchQuery	text	none	Search words, or the Internet Archive search syntax such as title:(apollo) AND subject:nasa.
identifiers	list of text	none	Item identifiers, one per line (the last part of archive.org/details/IDENTIFIER). Up to 500.
collections	list of text	none	Collection identifiers, for example nasa. An item is kept when it is in any of them.
mediatypes	list	all	texts, movies, audio, image, software, data, web, etree, collection.
creator	text	none	The creator credited on the item.
dateField	text	date	Which date the two date fields use: date (the item's own date) or publicdate (when it was added to the archive).
dateFrom, dateTo	text	none	Dates as 2020-01-31.
sortBy	text	downloads	downloads, relevance, newest-added, oldest-added, newest-item, oldest-item, title, largest.
includeFileList	true or false	false	Adds each item's first 100 files and the time it last changed. One extra request per item.
maxItems	number	100	Total items for the run. Minimum 10, maximum 10,000.

With no search words, no filters and no identifiers, the actor lists the most downloaded items on the whole archive.

Output fields

Field	Meaning
identifier, title, creator, description	The item identifier, title, creator (several are joined with a semicolon) and the description as plain text, cut at 3,000 characters.
mediaType, collections, subjects, languages, formats	Kind of item, the collections it is in, its subject tags, languages and file formats. Lists that users made of their favorites are left out of collections.
favoritedByCount	How many users have the item on a favorites list.
itemDate, addedAt	The date on the item and when it was made public on the archive.
downloads, downloadsLastWeek, downloadsLastMonth	Download counts kept by the Internet Archive.
itemSizeBytes, fileCount	Total size of the files and how many there are.
licenseUrl, publisher, contributor, runtime, imageCount	Set when the uploader filled them in.
itemUrl, downloadUrl, thumbnailUrl	The item page, the download folder and the thumbnail.
files, filesListed, lastUpdatedAt	Only with includeFileList: up to 100 files with name, format, source, sizeBytes and url, how many were listed, and when the item last changed.
scrapedAt	When the actor read the record.

Fields an item does not have are left out.

Sample results

Real rows from test runs on 20 October 2026, with long text shortened and some fields left out.

[
  {"identifier": "Experime1940", "title": "Experiments in the Revival of Organisms", "creator": "Techfilm Studio, Moscow", "mediaType": "movies", "itemDate": "1940-01-01T00:00:00Z", "downloads": 772522, "itemSizeBytes": 1719948065, "fileCount": 52, "favoritedByCount": 1164, "licenseUrl": "http://creativecommons.org/licenses/publicdomain/", "runtime": "19:31", "itemUrl": "https://archive.org/details/Experime1940"},
  {"identifier": "Apollo1116mmOnboardFilm", "title": "APOLLO 11 16MM ONBOARD FILM", "creator": "NASA/Johnson Space Center", "mediaType": "movies", "itemDate": "1969-01-01T00:00:00Z", "downloads": 301232, "itemSizeBytes": 5493529016, "fileCount": 103, "favoritedByCount": 188, "itemUrl": "https://archive.org/details/Apollo1116mmOnboardFilm"},
  {"identifier": "Levoyagedanslalune", "title": "Le voyage dans la lune", "mediaType": "movies", "downloads": 284378, "itemSizeBytes": 197594656, "fileCount": 33, "favoritedByCount": 363, "licenseUrl": "http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/fr/", "itemUrl": "https://archive.org/details/Levoyagedanslalune"}
]

Limits

• One request per second. The Internet Archive publishes no request limit for these APIs, only a request to identify yourself, pause between requests and honour 429 and Retry-After. The actor does all three and makes about one request per second. A search page holds up to 200 items. A test run of 50 videos took about 6 seconds.
• File lists cost time. With includeFileList the actor reads one more record per item, about one second each, so about 3,000 items fit in the default time limit of one hour. The list holds the first 100 files; fileCount always shows the real total. For more items with file lists, raise Timeout under Run options. If a run reaches the limit it stops cleanly and keeps what it has.
• Up to 10,000 items per run. The search does not page deeper than that. For a bigger pull, split the search by date range.
• Many fields are optional. Uploaders fill in what they like. In a test of 50 videos, 37 had an item date, 35 a creator, 28 a license link, 11 a language and 6 a publisher. Fields an item lacks are left out.
• A row is not a download. Some items are lending only or restricted, so a download link may not open the files. The actor reads public item records, not the files.
• Search is the archive's. Which items match, and the order for relevance, are decided by the Internet Archive. A search it cannot parse, for example with unbalanced brackets, returns no results and a note in the run log.
• Counts are the archive's. downloads, downloadsLastWeek and downloadsLastMonth are the figures the Internet Archive keeps and can lag behind.
• Text is plain. Descriptions have their HTML removed and are cut at 3,000 characters. Several creators, titles or descriptions on one item are joined with a semicolon.
• Favorites lists are left out. Popular items sit in hundreds of lists that users made of their favorites. They are left out of collections, and their number is in favoritedByCount.

FAQ

How much does it cost to scrape 10,000 items? $10, plus $0.001 for each run.

Do I pay for compute or proxy on top? No. Platform usage is included in the $1 per 1,000 price. The Internet Archive APIs are read directly, so no proxy is used.

Where does the data come from? From the Internet Archive's public search and item metadata APIs. No key and no login are needed.

How do I get the files of an item? Turn on includeFileList. Each file has its name, format, size and a direct download link. Without it, downloadUrl points to the folder that lists the files.

How do I find items added recently? Set dateField to publicdate and dateFrom to a recent date, and set sortBy to newest-added. Use identifier to drop items you already have.

Can I look up items I already know? Yes. Put their identifiers in identifiers, one per line. Identifiers that do not exist are skipped.

Is it legal? The actor reads public data only, with no login. How you use items and their metadata is up to you: follow the source's terms and the law where you live, and check the license of each item before you reuse it.

Is this an official Internet Archive product? No. It is an independent tool and is not affiliated with or endorsed by the Internet Archive.

Do I need an Apify account? Yes. Actors run from an Apify account, and a free account is enough to start: it includes $5 of platform usage every month. You can sign up here. This is a referral link and it costs you nothing.

Is there a limit on the free plan? Yes. A run started from a free plan account delivers the first 10 results, then ends with a message and a link to the plans. Any paid plan returns everything you ask for, up to your own limit. The price per result is the same on every plan.

More from The One Dollar Store

Every actor here costs $1 per 1,000 results, platform usage included. See the whole store: https://apify.com/one_dollar_store

Open data and statistics

• Eurostat Scraper: EU statistics tables as rows.
• Socrata Open Data Search: Datasets and rows from city and state portals.
• World Bank Indicators: Country indicators by year.
• Wikipedia Pageviews: Daily and monthly views per article.
• GDELT Scraper: Worldwide news articles by theme and tone.

Changelog

• October 2026: first release.