---

Python package & CLI tool that interfaces with the Wayback Machine API.

Table of contents

• Installation

• Usage

  • As a Python package

    • Saving a webpage
    • Retrieving archive
    • Retrieving the oldest archive
    • Retrieving the latest/newest archive
    • Retrieving the JSON response of availability API
    • Retrieving archive close to a specified year, month, day, hour, and minute
    • Get the content of webpage
    • Count total archives for an URL
    • List of URLs that Wayback Machine knows and has archived for a domain name

  • With the Command-line interface

    • Saving webpage
    • Archive URL
    • Oldest archive URL
    • Newest archive URL
    • JSON response of API
    • Total archives
    • Archive near specified time
    • Get the source code
    • Fetch all the URLs that the Wayback Machine knows for a domain

• Tests

• Packaging

• License

Installation

Using pip:

pip install waybackpy

or direct from this repository using git.

pip install git+https://github.com/akamhy/waybackpy.git

Usage

As a Python package

Capturing aka Saving an URL using save()

import waybackpy

url = "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multivariable_calculus"
user_agent = "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 5.1; rv:40.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/40.0"

waybackpy_url_obj = waybackpy.Url(url, user_agent)
archive = waybackpy_url_obj.save()
print(archive)

https://web.archive.org/web/20201016171808/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multivariable_calculus

_{Try this out in your browser @ https://repl.it/@akamhy/WaybackPySaveExample}

Retrieving the archive for an URL using archive_url

import waybackpy

url = "https://www.google.com/"
user_agent = "Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.8; rv:40.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/40.0"

waybackpy_url_obj = waybackpy.Url(url, user_agent)
archive_url = waybackpy_url_obj.archive_url
print(archive_url)

https://web.archive.org/web/20201016153320/https://www.google.com/

_{Try this out in your browser @ https://repl.it/@akamhy/WaybackPyArchiveUrl}

Retrieving the oldest archive for an URL using oldest()

import waybackpy

url = "https://www.google.com/"
user_agent = "Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.8; rv:40.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/40.0"

waybackpy_url_obj = waybackpy.Url(url, user_agent)
oldest_archive_url = waybackpy_url_obj.oldest()
print(oldest_archive_url)

http://web.archive.org/web/19981111184551/http://google.com:80/

_{Try this out in your browser @ https://repl.it/@akamhy/WaybackPyOldestExample}

Retrieving the newest archive for an URL using newest()

import waybackpy

url = "https://www.facebook.com/"
user_agent = "Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.10; rv:39.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/39.0"

waybackpy_url_obj = waybackpy.Url(url, user_agent)
newest_archive_url = waybackpy_url_obj.newest()
print(newest_archive_url)

https://web.archive.org/web/20201016150543/https://www.facebook.com/

_{Try this out in your browser @ https://repl.it/@akamhy/WaybackPyNewestExample}

Retrieving the JSON response for the availability API request

import waybackpy

url = "https://www.facebook.com/"
user_agent = "Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.10; rv:39.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/39.0"

waybackpy_url_obj = waybackpy.Url(url, user_agent)
json_dict = waybackpy_url_obj.JSON
print(json_dict)

{'url': 'https://www.facebook.com/', 'archived_snapshots': {'closest': {'available': True, 'url': 'http://web.archive.org/web/20201016150543/https://www.facebook.com/', 'timestamp': '20201016150543', 'status': '200'}}}

_{Try this out in your browser @ https://repl.it/@akamhy/WaybackPyJSON}

Retrieving archive close to a specified year, month, day, hour, and minute using near()

from waybackpy import Url

user_agent = "Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.10; rv:38.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/38.0"
url = "https://github.com/"

waybackpy_url_obj = Url(url, user_agent)

# Do not pad (don't use zeros in the month, year, day, minute, and hour arguments). e.g. For January, set month = 1 and not month = 01.

github_archive_near_2010 = waybackpy_url_obj.near(year=2010)
print(github_archive_near_2010)

https://web.archive.org/web/20101018053604/http://github.com:80/

github_archive_near_2011_may = waybackpy_url_obj.near(year=2011, month=5)
print(github_archive_near_2011_may)

https://web.archive.org/web/20110518233639/https://github.com/

github_archive_near_2015_january_26 = waybackpy_url_obj.near(year=2015, month=1, day=26)
print(github_archive_near_2015_january_26)

https://web.archive.org/web/20150125102636/https://github.com/

github_archive_near_2018_4_july_9_2_am = waybackpy_url_obj.near(year=2018, month=7, day=4, hour=9, minute=2)
print(github_archive_near_2018_4_july_9_2_am)

https://web.archive.org/web/20180704090245/https://github.com/

_{The package doesn't support the seconds' argument yet. You are encouraged to create a PR ;)}

_{Try this out in your browser @ https://repl.it/@akamhy/WaybackPyNearExample}

Get the content of webpage using get()

import waybackpy

google_url = "https://www.google.com/"

User_Agent = "Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_10_0) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/45.0.2454.85 Safari/537.36"

waybackpy_url_object = waybackpy.Url(google_url, User_Agent)


# If no argument is passed in get(), it gets the source of the Url used to create the object.
current_google_url_source = waybackpy_url_object.get()
print(current_google_url_source)


# The following chunk of code will force a new archive of google.com and get the source of the archived page.
# waybackpy_url_object.save() type is string.
google_newest_archive_source = waybackpy_url_object.get(waybackpy_url_object.save())
print(google_newest_archive_source)


# waybackpy_url_object.oldest() type is str, it's oldest archive of google.com
google_oldest_archive_source = waybackpy_url_object.get(waybackpy_url_object.oldest())
print(google_oldest_archive_source)

_{Try this out in your browser @ https://repl.it/@akamhy/WaybackPyGetExample#main.py}

Count total archives for an URL using total_archives()

import waybackpy

URL = "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Python (programming language)"
UA = "Mozilla/5.0 (iPad; CPU OS 8_1_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/600.1.4 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/8.0 Mobile/12B435 Safari/600.1.4"

waybackpy_url_object = waybackpy.Url(url=URL, user_agent=UA)

archive_count = waybackpy_url_object.total_archives()

print(archive_count) # total_archives() returns an int

2516

_{Try this out in your browser @ https://repl.it/@akamhy/WaybackPyTotalArchivesExample}

List of URLs that Wayback Machine knows and has archived for a domain name

1. If alive=True is set, waybackpy will check all URLs to identify the alive URLs. Don't use with popular websites like google or it would take too long.
2. To include URLs from subdomain set sundomain=True

import waybackpy

URL = "akamhy.github.io"
UA = "Mozilla/5.0 (iPad; CPU OS 8_1_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/600.1.4 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/8.0 Mobile/12B435 Safari/600.1.4"

waybackpy_url_object = waybackpy.Url(url=URL, user_agent=UA)
known_urls = waybackpy_url_object.known_urls(alive=True, subdomain=False) # alive and subdomain are optional.
print(known_urls) # known_urls() returns list of URLs

['http://akamhy.github.io',
'https://akamhy.github.io/waybackpy/',
'https://akamhy.github.io/waybackpy/assets/css/style.css?v=a418a4e4641a1dbaad8f3bfbf293fad21a75ff11',
'https://akamhy.github.io/waybackpy/assets/css/style.css?v=f881705d00bf47b5bf0c58808efe29eecba2226c']

_{Try this out in your browser @ https://repl.it/@akamhy/WaybackPyKnownURLsToWayBackMachineExample#main.py}

With the Command-line interface

Save

$ waybackpy --url "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media" --user_agent "my-unique-user-agent" --save
https://web.archive.org/web/20200719062108/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media

_{Try this out in your browser @ https://repl.it/@akamhy/WaybackPyBashSave}

Get archive URL

$ waybackpy --url "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX" --user_agent "my-unique-user-agent" --archive_url
https://web.archive.org/web/20201007132458/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX

_{Try this out in your browser @ https://repl.it/@akamhy/WaybackPyBashArchiveUrl}

Oldest archive

$ waybackpy --url "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX" --user_agent "my-unique-user-agent" --oldest
https://web.archive.org/web/20040803000845/http://en.wikipedia.org:80/wiki/SpaceX

_{Try this out in your browser @ https://repl.it/@akamhy/WaybackPyBashOldest}

Newest archive

$ waybackpy --url "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YouTube" --user_agent "my-unique-user-agent" --newest
https://web.archive.org/web/20200606044708/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YouTube

_{Try this out in your browser @ https://repl.it/@akamhy/WaybackPyBashNewest}

Get JSON data of avaialblity API

waybackpy --url "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX" --user_agent "my-unique-user-agent" --json

{'archived_snapshots': {'closest': {'timestamp': '20201007132458', 'status': '200', 'available': True, 'url': 'http://web.archive.org/web/20201007132458/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX'}}, 'url': 'https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX'}

_{Try this out in your browser @ https://repl.it/@akamhy/WaybackPyBashJSON}

Total number of archives

$ waybackpy --url "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_kernel" --user_agent "my-unique-user-agent" --total
853

_{Try this out in your browser @ https://repl.it/@akamhy/WaybackPyBashTotal}

Archive near time

$ waybackpy --url facebook.com --user_agent "my-unique-user-agent" --near --year 2012 --month 5 --day 12
https://web.archive.org/web/20120512142515/https://www.facebook.com/

_{Try this out in your browser @ https://repl.it/@akamhy/WaybackPyBashNear}

Get the source code

waybackpy --url google.com --user_agent "my-unique-user-agent" --get url # Prints the source code of the URL
waybackpy --url google.com --user_agent "my-unique-user-agent" --get oldest # Prints the source code of the oldest archive
waybackpy --url google.com --user_agent "my-unique-user-agent" --get newest # Prints the source code of the newest archive
waybackpy --url google.com --user_agent "my-unique-user-agent" --get save # Save a new archive on Wayback machine then print the source code of this archive.

_{Try this out in your browser @ https://repl.it/@akamhy/WaybackPyBashGet}

Fetch all the URLs that the Wayback Machine knows for a domain

1. You can add the '--alive' flag to only fetch alive links.
2. You can add the '--subdomain' flag to add subdomains.
3. '--alive' and '--subdomain' flags can be used simultaneously.
4. All links will be saved in a file, and the file will be created in the current working directory.

pip install waybackpy

# Ignore the above installation line.

waybackpy --url akamhy.github.io --user_agent "my-user-agent" --known_urls
# Prints all known URLs under akamhy.github.io


waybackpy --url akamhy.github.io --user_agent "my-user-agent" --known_urls --alive
# Prints all known URLs under akamhy.github.io which are still working and not dead links.


waybackpy --url akamhy.github.io --user_agent "my-user-agent" --known_urls --subdomain
# Prints all known URLs under akamhy.github.io including subdomain


waybackpy --url akamhy.github.io --user_agent "my-user-agent" --known_urls --subdomain --alive
# Prints all known URLs under akamhy.github.io including subdomain which are not dead links and still alive.

_{Try this out in your browser @ https://repl.it/@akamhy/WaybackpyKnownUrlsFromWaybackMachine#main.sh}

Tests

To run tests locally:

1. Install or update the testing/coverage tools

pip install codecov pytest pytest-cov -U

2. Inside the repository run the following commands

pytest --cov=waybackpy tests/

3. To report coverage run

bash <(curl -s https://codecov.io/bash) -t SECRET_CODECOV_TOKEN

You can find the tests here.

Packaging

1. Increment version.

2. Build package python setup.py sdist bdist_wheel.

3. Sign & upload the package twine upload -s dist/*.

License

Released under the MIT License. See license for details.