Install

ArchiveBox is primarily distributed as a Python package via pip, but it also depends on some system packages that can be installed manually or automatically with Docker. It usually takes less than ~10min to get ArchiveBox set up and running.

Supported Systems
Install Instructions
Next Steps

Supported Systems

CPU Architectures: amd64 (x86_64), arm64 (aarch64), arm7
(Including 64-bit Intel/AMD, M1/M2/etc. Macs, Raspberry Pi >= 3)

macOS: >=10.12 (with pip)
Linux: Ubuntu (>= 18.04), Debian (>= 10), etc. (with apt)
BSD: FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD etc (with pkg)

Other systems are not officially supported but may work with degraded functionality:

Windows: Via [[Docker]], Docker in WSL2, or WSL2 without Docker (not recommended)
Other UNIX systems: Arch, Nix, Guix, Fedora, SUSE, Arch, CentOS, etc.

_{Note: On arm7 the playwright package is not available, so chromium must be installed manually if needed.}

You will also need at least 500MB of RAM (bare minimum), 2GB or greater is recommended. You may be able to reduce the RAM requirements if you disable all the chrome-based archiving methods with CHROME_ENABLED=False (or its USE_CHROME alias).

It’s also recommended to use a filesystem with compression and/or deduplication (e.g. ZFS or BTRFS) for maximum efficiency.

Option A. Docker / Docker Compose Setup ⭐️

Docker Compose is the recommended way to get ArchiveBox, as it includes all the extras out-of-the-box and provides the best security and upgrade UX.

If you don’t already have docker installed, follow the official instructions to get Docker on Linux, macOS, or Windows:
https://docs.docker.com/install/#supported-platforms ➡️
Then follow the Quickstart guide and read the [[Docker]] wiki page for next steps. ➡️

You can also run Dockerized ArchiveBox using UNRAID/TrueNAS/Proxmox/etc. or Kubernetes.

More info:

Dockerfile
docker-compose.yml
archivebox-kubernetes.yml
ArchiveBox Docker Quickstart + Usage + Configuration + Upgrading documentation

Option B. Automatic Setup Script

If you’re on Linux with apt or FreeBSD with pkg there is an optional auto-setup script provided.

(or scroll further down for manual install instructions)

curl -fsSL 'https://get.archivebox.io' | bash
# shortcut to run https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/stable/bin/setup.sh

The script explains what it installs beforehand, and will prompt for user confirmation before making any changes to your system. The script uses Docker if already installed, but you can decline and it will attempt to auto-install everything using apt/brew/pkg + pip instead.

After running the setup script, continue with the Quickstart guide… ➡️

See here for our thoughts on the inherent limitations of curl | sh as an install method…

Option C. Bare Metal Setup

If you’d rather not use Docker or our auto-install script, you can follow these manual setup instructions to install ArchiveBox and its dependencies using pip & your system package manager of choice (e.g. apt, brew, pkg, nix, etc.).

See our Dependencies documentation to see the full list of dependencies and how they’re used. Not all the dependencies are required for all modes. If you disable some archive methods you can skip installing those dependencies — for example, if you set MEDIA_ENABLED=False you don’t need to install yt-dlp, and if you set PDF_ENABLED=False, SCREENSHOT_ENABLED=False, and DOM_ENABLED=False you don’t need chromium.

More info:

For help installing these, see the Manual Setup, [[Troubleshooting]] and [[Chromium Install]] pages.
For per-plugin binary and enable/disable options (CHROME_BINARY, RIPGREP_BINARY, <plugin>_ENABLED, etc.) see the abx-plugins config reference.

1. Install base system dependencies needed for your OS

Be aware, you’ll need to keep all these packages up-to-date yourself over time!

macOS

Make sure you have Homebrew installed first.

# Install ArchiveBox's dependencies manually (instead of using the all-in-one brew package)
brew install python3 node git wget curl ffmpeg yt-dlp ripgrep sonic
pip install archivebox
archivebox install

# Optional: get FFMPEG with the AAC addon
# brew tap homebrew-ffmpeg/ffmpeg
# brew uninstall ffmpeg; brew install homebrew-ffmpeg/ffmpeg/ffmpeg --with-fdk-aac

# Optional: get Chromium with brew (not needed if you already have /Applications/{Google Chrome,Chromium}.app)
# brew install --cask chromium

Ubuntu/Debian-based Systems

Use the third-party ArchiveBox apt repo for the simplest bare-metal install:

echo 'deb [trusted=yes] https://archivebox.github.io/debian-archivebox dev main' | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/archivebox.list
sudo apt update
sudo apt install archivebox

mkdir -p ~/archivebox/data && cd ~/archivebox/data
archivebox init
sudo archivebox install
archivebox add 'https://example.com'

The apt package installs the ArchiveBox Python application. Runtime extractor dependencies such as Chromium, yt-dlp, SingleFile, and other plugin-managed tools are installed by sudo archivebox install.

FreeBSD

sudo pkg install python git wget curl youtube_dl ripgrep py311-pip py311-sqlite3 npm ffmpeg
sudo pkg install chromium

# or for older versions:
# sudo pkg install python node wget curl git yt-dlp ffmpeg ripgrep chromium-browser

OpenBSD

sudo pkg_add python3 node wget git curl yt-dlp ffmpeg ripgrep chromium

Arch Linux / Nix / Guix / etc. Other OSs

See the Quickstart instructions for other operating systems and release channels. ➡️

2. Install the Python dependencies using `pip`

If you are not using the apt package above, install ArchiveBox with pip.

# get the latest version of archivebox from PyPI
pip install --upgrade --ignore-installed archivebox[ldap,sonic]

# if you see errors about ldap, install the C++ build tools + ldap headers and retry (only needed on some OSs + if you want ldap)
# apt install build-essensial python3-ldap

3. Install runtime dependencies using `archivebox install`

Finish installing runtime dependencies for the enabled ArchiveBox plugins.

# create a new empty folder anywhere to hold your collection, and cd into it
mkdir -p ~/archivebox/data && cd ~/archivebox/data

# instantiate the directory as an archivebox collection dir
archivebox init

# auto-install runtime dependencies such as Chromium, yt-dlp, SingleFile, etc.
sudo archivebox install

# archive a first URL
archivebox add 'https://example.com'

# ✅ see a final detailed breakdown of all the installed dependencies and commands available
archivebox version
archivebox help

Troubleshooting

Make sure the pip-installed version of archivebox is available in your $PATH.

pip show archivebox      # show info about the pip-installed version of archivebox

echo $PATH               # show the directories your system is searching for binaries
which -a archivebox      # show all installed archivebox binaries available
which archivebox         # show which archivebox binary is being called

cd ~/archivebox/data
archivebox version       # ⭐️ show lots of useful info about installed dependencies and more
archivebox status
archivebox help

(ensure the version shown is the most recent available from Releases)

Make sure to run archivebox as an unprivileged user (i.e. without sudo / not logged in as root).
Make sure to run all commands, including archivebox version, archivebox help, etc. inside a data directory (or a new empty dir that will become a data dir).

If you have issues getting Chromium / Google Chrome or other dependencies working with ArchiveBox, see the [[Chromium Install]] and [[Troubleshooting]] pages for more detailed instructions.

Next Steps: Add some URLs to archive and try out CLI / Web UI

For guides on how to import URLs from different sources into ArchiveBox, check out Input Formats and Preparing URLs. ➡️

cd ~/archivebox/data

# feed in your URLs to start archiving!
archivebox add --help
archivebox add < ~/Downloads/bookmarks_export.html

# inspect the newly added Snapshots via the CLI
archivebox list
archivebox status

# OR start the webserver and view them in the Web UI
archivebox server 0.0.0.0:8000
open http://localhost:8000

See our [[Usage]] Wiki documentation page for more examples.

Next Steps: Upgrading Archivebox to a new version

Make sure all apt/brew/pkg/etc. dependencies from above are installed & up-to-date first.

# get the latest archivebox version from PyPI
pip install --upgrade --ignore-installed archivebox

# run init inside any data directories to migrate the index to the latest version
cd ~/archivebox/data
archivebox init          # update collection index & apply any migrations 
sudo archivebox install  # update runtime dependencies to latest versions

Check our more detailed Upgrading documentation and Release Notes if you run into any problems. ➡️