Find Wayback Machine Snapshots
ia_find_snapshotsFind Wayback Machine snapshots of a URL. Mode "closest" returns the single nearest capture to a given timestamp via the Availability API, falling back to a CDX closest-capture query when the Availability API has no answer (one result). Mode "history" returns the full capture list via the CDX API — filterable by date range and HTTP status code, collapsed by default to one capture per day (collapse "timestamp:8"); collapse "timestamp:14" lists one row per distinct capture second. Use history mode to survey how a page changed over time; use closest mode when you need the snapshot nearest a specific date. History mode returns up to limit records (at most 10,000 per call) and supports resume-key pagination for URLs with very large capture histories.
Input Schema
| Name | Required | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|---|
| to | No | End of date range filter in YYYYMMDD format (history mode only). Example: "20231231". | |
| url | Yes | The URL to look up in the Wayback Machine. | |
| from | No | Start of date range filter in YYYYMMDD format (history mode only). Example: "20200101". | |
| mode | Yes | Lookup mode: "closest" returns the single nearest snapshot to the given timestamp; "history" returns the paginated full capture list via the CDX API. | |
| limit | No | Maximum number of CDX records to return (history mode only, default 100). One call returns at most 10,000: a larger value (up to 150,000) is served as 10,000, and the resume_key continues from there. | |
| collapse | No | CDX collapse parameter (history mode only). Format: "timestamp:N" where N is 1–14 (4=year, 6=month, 8=day, 10=hour, 14=second): consecutive captures sharing the first N timestamp digits are listed once. Omitted or blank, it is "timestamp:8", one capture per day. Pass "timestamp:14" for one row per distinct capture second. | |
| timestamp | No | Target timestamp in YYYYMMDDHHMMSS format (or any prefix thereof). Required for mode=closest. Example: "20200101" for January 1, 2020. | |
| resume_key | No | Opaque pagination key from a previous history mode response. Pass this to continue from where the last page left off. | |
| status_filter | No | Filter CDX results to a specific HTTP status code (history mode only). Must be a 3-digit numeric code. Example: "200" to return only successful captures. |
Output Schema
| Name | Required | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|---|
| cap | No | The limit applied: limit, or 10,000 when a larger value was capped. | |
| error | No | Present when the call failed. Absent on success. | |
| shown | No | Number of snapshots returned. | |
| notice | No | Set when the list was capped: how to continue, naming resume_key. | |
| snapshots | No | List of snapshots matching the query. | |
| truncated | No | True when the snapshot list was capped at the limit. | |
| resume_key | No | Opaque key to pass as resume_key in the next call to continue paginating CDX history results. |