| name | bellingcat-archiving |
| description | Archive and preserve web content, social media posts, videos, and pages. Capture snapshots, monitor changes, and retrieve historical versions. Use when the user needs to save, archive, or retrieve web content, even if they don't mention "archiving" or "OSINT."
|
| compatibility | Requires internet access to fetch tool detail pages from bellingcat.gitbook.io |
Bellingcat Archiving Tools
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
