Skip to content
archive

Quick start

From an empty terminal to reading a real item's metadata and files, in a handful of commands.

This walks the core loop: search for items, look one up, and list its files. Every command here hits live data on archive.org and finishes in a second or two. None of it needs an account.

1. Search for items

archive search 'collection:nasa' -n 3

Each row is one item: its identifier, title, mediatype, and download count. Pick the output that suits you:

archive search 'collection:nasa' -o url      # details URLs
archive search 'collection:nasa' -o table     # aligned columns for reading
archive search 'mediatype:texts AND subject:mathematics' -n 5

search speaks Lucene, the same query language as the website's Advanced Search. Scope by field (mediatype:, collection:, subject:, date:[...]), combine with AND/OR, and sort with --sort:

archive search 'collection:nasa' --sort 'downloads desc' -n 5

2. Look an item up

item prints a friendly summary; metadata prints the raw document.

archive item nasa

field       value
identifier  nasa
title       NASA
mediatype   collection
files       9
size        131.1 KB
server      ia801607.us.archive.org
details     https://archive.org/details/nasa

Want a single field instead of the whole record?

archive metadata nasa metadata/title     # -> "NASA"

3. List the files

archive files nasa -o url

https://archive.org/download/nasa/globe_west_540.jpg
https://archive.org/download/nasa/globe_west_540_thumb.jpg
...

Filter by shell glob or by archive's format field:

archive files nasa --glob '*.jpg'
archive files nasa --format JPEG -o url

4. Download and verify

download fetches files concurrently into a per-item directory and verifies each against its md5. Pass file names to select a subset, or a --glob / --format filter.

archive download nasa globe_west_540_thumb.jpg -d .

ok   globe_west_540_thumb.jpg (6.0 KB)

A re-run skips files whose md5 already matches, and an interrupted download resumes from where it stopped.

5. Travel the Wayback Machine

archive wayback available example.com         # the closest snapshot
archive wayback get example.com -t 2010 --text # the page's text, c. 2010

Where to go next

  • The guides go deep on each task: searching, items and metadata, downloading, uploading, and the Wayback Machine.
  • The CLI reference lists every command and flag.
  • To upload or delete, set up credentials first.
2 min read