resources

looking to make an archive of your own? i compiled a bunch of resources that friends of mine and i have found over the last couple years. these resources are divided into 3 categories: information, tools, and filehosting.

information

this section is for resources dedicated to what digital archiving and datahoarding is, as well as guides to get started and information about hardware and software and other information that might be useful for this particular project.

tools

various extensions, websites and software you can use to download and organize content.

  • ArchiveBox - a selfhosted internet archiving solution to collect, save, and view sites you want to preserve offline. can be set up as a command-line tool, web app, and desktop app on linux, macOS, and windows.
  • The Wayback Machine and Archive.is - websites dedicated to creating unalterable 'snapshots' of webpages. can and has been used to recover youtube videos, though doesn't really work for other platforms like twitch.
  • TumblThree - a free, opensource backup application for tumblr, twitter, and newtumbl. allows you to download photos, videos, and textposts from any account on the aforementioned platforms. has a bunch of features, including the ability to download things that only meet certain criteria (only download tagged posts, only download retweeted content, and so on).
  • Bulk Rename Utility - moreso helpful for organizing your files. lets you rename a bunch of files at once.
  • Saucenao - a reverse image search engine, may be helpful for finding art.
  • DownThemAll - a firefox / chrome / edge extension that lets you download all of the images and links on a website at once. allows you to refine your downloads with fully customizable filters, and allows you to queue, pause and resume downloads at any time.
  • ShuckStop - if you're looking to buy an external drive, this is a price tracker precisely for that.
  • ClipsGameLab - lets you search all clips from any twitch channel and organize them by date. also functions as a clip downloader.
  • Tube Archivist - a self hosted youtube media server. aims to let you easily organize, search, and enjoy your archived youtube videos offline through a convenient web interface by indexing them with metadata. also has a browser extension for firefox and chrome, as well as a metrics/statistics service if you're interested in that.
  • Open Video Downloader and Stacher - graphical user interfaces for youtube-dlp. lets you download youtube videos. both have a lot of cool features, i'd recommend looking at each page to see them.
  • TwitchRecover, Twitch Downloader, and TwitchLink - all dedicated to downloading twitch videos and clips, and are alternatives to the now discontinued twitch leecher. i haven't tried twitchrecover, but people have vouched for twitchlink and twitch downloader. twitchlink in particular allows you to download a stream as its happening, which is helpful for avoiding VODs being muted due to copyright. it is important to note that because of the way twitch works, these will only start recording at the time you started downloading the clips (i.e if you start it an hour into a stream, it will only download from that hour in and onwards.)
  • StreamRecorder - a website that allows you to select a few twitch streamers to automatically get their VOD as it's happening without you having to do anything at the time. good for streamers who's VODs tend to disappear or have a mute risk. the free version lets you select 3 streamers and will keep the vods for a week for you to download them.
  • TwitchTracker - lets you see the dates and titles of all of a twitch channel's streams. helpful for dating VODs that you don't have links to but have downloaded. you can see an example of how this can be done here
  • Searching and Saving - this is a tumblr post that covers some effective searching strategies, as well as some extensions to save and find webpages. has extra resources linked.
  • PocketTube - allows you to sort youtube channel subscriptions into different categories, as well as filtering the subscription feed of videos by category and type of video (allows you to both include and exclude) on top of whether or not the video has already been watched. may be useful for going through other people's VOD channels (especially official ones) for various archiving spreadsheet projects.
  • Official Guide to tagging for the Lifesteal SMP Archive - good for tagging lifesteal uploads on internet archive, but also has a general guide to uploading onto the internet archive and editing metadata.
  • Resources and Links for Archivists - self explanatory. a giant list of resources and links covering internet safety, file management, watching and archiving twitch + youtube, as well as some miscellaneous general resources that could prove helpful.
  • VodRecovery - tool for recovering VODs that were hidden/privated or sub-only but not actually deleted or expired. (important note: "unmute" means that it handles muted sections of a VOD so that the video can still play; the muted audio is generally not still available on twitch's servers and the video will still be silent).

filehosting

places to store your archived content.

  • The Internet Archive - i am very kindly asking you to use the internet archive. allows you to upload an unlimited amount of files with no barrier on size, though obviously larger files will take a while. completely free and easily sharable.
  • Dropbox - popular cloud storage service. a free account will get you 2GB total.
  • OneDrive - microsoft's cloud storage service. a free account will get you 5GB across your entire microsoft account.
  • Google Drive - google's cloud storage service. every google account comes with 15GB for free.
  • GoFile - i would only recommend this if you have some money and an alternative place to upload your files. all accounts have unlimited storage and file size, but free accounts do not get permanent storage. for free accounts, files will be deleted within a week unless your file is being downloaded constantly and often.
  • CatBox - lets you upload files up to 200mb.
  • Mega - another popular cloud storage service. a free account lets you get 20GB.

if you're interested in making a website to link archives onto... well, you're on neocities already aren't you? there are plenty of resources to learn html and css, as well as pre-existing templates (like what i've used for this website!). if you're a tumblr user, tumblr page themes (NOT blog themes) also work. most of the people who edit this site use visual studio code instead of the neocities editor (reasons including ease of use and the live preview extension). vscode is free to download.