Internet Archive Scraper: search, metadata, download links, Wayback snapshots

Query archive.org (books, video, audio, software, images, web archives) and get clean JSON. Uses the official public archive.org APIs, so no API key, no proxy and no login. Requests are sent one at a time with retry backoff, so runs stay within archive.org's fair-use limits.

Built in response to the Internet Archive Scraper request on Apify Ideas.

Sample output

{
  "query": "title:(apollo 11)",
  "identifier": "Apollo1116mmOnboardFilm",
  "title": "APOLLO 11 16MM ONBOARD FILM",
  "mediatype": "movies",
  "downloads": 301031,
  "subjects": ["What -- Apollo 11", "space", "nasa", "Apollo 11", "16MM"],
  "collections": ["nasa-apollo-multimedia-gallery", "nasa", "movies"],
  "url": "https://archive.org/details/Apollo1116mmOnboardFilm"
}

What you can do

• Search the whole archive with Lucene syntax (creator:"NASA" AND subject:space), filter by media type and date range, sort by downloads or date.
• Get full metadata for specific identifiers or item URLs, including description, license and the list of files with direct download URLs, sizes and MD5 hashes.
• Wayback Machine: find the closest snapshot of any URL for a given date, or list up to thousands of snapshots from the CDX index.

Input examples

Tip: archive.org matches words anywhere in an item (title, description, reviews). For tight matches search a field, e.g. title:(apollo 11) or creator:"NASA".

Search: {"queries":["apollo 11"],"mediaTypes":["movies"],"sort":"downloads","maxItemsPerQuery":200}

Metadata and files: {"identifiers":["https://archive.org/details/apollo-11-mission-report"]} or {"queries":["nasa"],"includeFiles":true}

Wayback: {"waybackUrls":["example.com"],"waybackTimestamp":"20200101"} or {"waybackUrls":["example.com"],"waybackCount":500}

Output

Each search result: identifier, title, creator, date, mediatype, downloads, subjects, languages, collections, size, URL. With includeFiles: description, license and files[] with download links.

Use cases

Research datasets, public-domain book and media collection, OSINT and link-rot recovery, SEO and content history, training-data sourcing. You are responsible for respecting the license of each item.

Pay per result: you are charged for each item pushed to the dataset.

What is Internet Archive Scraper?

Internet Archive Scraper searches the Internet Archive (archive.org) and returns item metadata (title, creator, date, media type, downloads, collections), optional file download links, and Wayback Machine snapshots for the URLs you give it. You can run it from the Apify Console, call it over the API, schedule it, or connect it to Make, Zapier, n8n, Google Sheets and webhooks.

How to use Internet Archive Scraper

1. Enter search Queries or exact item Identifiers; or paste URLs into Wayback URLs to list their snapshots.
2. Filter by Media types and Date from/to.
3. Turn on Include files if you need download links.
4. Click Start and export the results.

How much does it cost?

You pay per item delivered, nothing for compute. Apify subscribers get lower prices:

Plan	Price per item	Per 1,000
Free	$0.0020	$2.00
Bronze	$0.0018	$1.80
Silver	$0.0015	$1.50
Gold	$0.0012	$1.20

Example: 2,500 items cost about $5.00 on the free plan. The Apify free plan includes $5 of monthly credit, so you can test on real data before paying anything.

Integrations and API

Every run produces a dataset you can download as JSON, CSV, Excel or HTML, or read with the Apify API and the JavaScript/Python clients. The Actor also works as a tool for AI agents through the Apify MCP server.

FAQ

Is it legal? The Actor only reads publicly available pages and does not log in anywhere. You are responsible for how you use the data, including GDPR and the terms of the source site.

Something broke or a field is missing? Open an issue in the Issues tab. I usually reply within a day and fix confirmed bugs quickly.

Need a custom version? Describe it in an issue and I will tell you what is possible.

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