Tools for archiving web content, social media posts, and monitoring page changes over time.
Choosing Tools
- Use archive services to preserve or retrieve a specific page; use monitoring tools when you need to detect later changes.
- Prefer more than one archive for material that may disappear, and retain the original URL and capture time with the archive link.
Tools
| Tool | Best for | Cost | Description | Guide |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Archive.today | Archive any webpage, including Facebook and search for archived pages. | Free | Archive any webpage, including Facebook and search for archived pages. | Details |
| Auto Archiver | Bellingcat's tool to automatically archive social media posts, videos, and images. | Free | Bellingcat's tool to automatically archive social media posts, videos, and images. Free and Open-Source. | Details |
| Bellingcat TikTok Hashtag Analysis | Archive content and metadata from TikTok posts that contain one or more specified hashtags | Free | Archive content and metadata from TikTok posts that contain one or more specified hashtags | |
| Distill.io | A website change monitoring tool that allows users to track changes on web pages. | Partially Free | Distill.io is a website change monitoring tool that allows users to track changes on web pages. | Details |
| Hunchly | An archiving tool that tracks online activities and preserves essential information about… | Paid | An archiving tool that tracks online activities and preserves essential information about the web pages researchers v... | Details |
| Wayback Machine | The Internet Archive's Wayback Machine lets users view and archive web pages, aiding in… | Free | The Internet Archive's Wayback Machine lets users view and archive web pages, aiding in historical research and digit... | Details |
| Lumen | A research project collecting and publishing legal takedown notices for online content… | Free | A research project collecting and publishing legal takedown notices for online content transparency | Details |
| Web Archives | A browser extension to view archived and cached versions of a website on multiple… | Partially Free | A browser extension to view archived and cached versions of a website on multiple archiving sites. | Details |
Investigation Tips
- Use the Wayback Machine for historical snapshots of any web page
- Archive.today works well for archiving social media pages including Facebook
- Bellingcat's Auto Archiver automatically archives social media posts, videos, and images
- Distill.io monitors pages for changes and sends alerts
- Hunchly tracks all pages visited during an investigation with automatic archiving
- For long-term preservation, archive to multiple services simultaneously