/wayback/snapshots

POST /api/wayback/snapshots

Price: 1 credit

Get the closest archived Wayback Machine snapshot for a URL at a given date

How to use it

Find the single archived snapshot of a URL closest to a given date (or the most recent one if no date is given). Returns the capture timestamp, the archived original URL, and a ready-to-open archive URL — the quick 'show me how this page looked on date X' lookup. Returns not-found when the Wayback Machine has no snapshot for the URL.

Parameters

• access-token string required

Request body

• timeout integer — Max scrapping execution timeout (in seconds) (default: 300; min: 20; max: 1500)
• url string required — Target URL to find the closest archived snapshot for. Accepts a bare domain or a full URL with path. (examples: "cnn.com", "https://github.com/about"; minLength: 1)
• timestamp string nullable — Find the snapshot closest to this date, as YYYYMMDD or YYYYMMDDHHMMSS. Omit to get the most recent snapshot. (examples: "20120601", "20200115120000")
• include_status_code boolean — Also resolve the HTTP status of the closest capture (slower). (default: false)

Response

• @type string (default: "WaybackClosestSnapshot")
• timestamp string nullable
• captured_at string nullable
• original_url string nullable
• status_code integer nullable
• archive_url string nullable

Errors

• 422 — The request body did not validate Check the fields against this schema. A URN with the wrong prefix is the most common cause.
• 408 — The request ran past its time limit Raise `timeout` in the request body, up to the maximum this endpoint documents. Lowering `count` or turning off the `with_*` flags also helps, because less work finishes sooner.
• 412 — No archived snapshot found for this URL Retrying will not help: either the entity does not exist, or the input points at a different one.
• 429 — Too many requests: a rate limit or a usage window is exhausted When the response carries an X-Retry-After header, wait that many seconds and retry: the same number is in the body as `detail.retry_after`, and the limit clears once that window passes. The message in the body names the limit that was hit.
• 500 — Something broke on our side Retrying will not help. If it keeps happening, send us the X-Request-ID from the response headers.
• 529 — Rate limit reached, or the endpoint is overloaded Wait at least 30 seconds, then retry.

Response headers

• X-Error — Error message text (present only on error)
• X-Request-ID — Unique request identifier
• X-Execution-Time — Execution time in seconds
• X-Result-Count — How many records the body carries. 0 means an empty result, which is a normal answer and not by itself an error. A non-zero count can come back together with X-Error when the failure happened partway through — read this header and X-Error independently.
• X-Total-Available-Results — How many records exist for this query, when the endpoint can say. On a `dry_run` request this is the answer and the body is empty. It saturates: the endpoint's documented maximum means 'at least that many', any smaller number is exact.
• X-Warning — Present when the request body carried keys this endpoint does not document. They were ignored, so any filter you meant to apply through them did not apply. Check the spelling against this schema and retry.
• X-Retry-After — Seconds to wait before retrying. Present only on 429.