How To Recover Fic Deleted From AO3 That’s NOT On The Wayback Machine

How to recover fic deleted from AO3 that’s NOT on the Wayback machine

Sharing this because I just found out about this and it blew my mind.

The short version of it is: The Wayback Machine is not the only backup/archive of AO3 content out there. It’s just the most user-friendly and immediately browsable.

THIS database on Archive.org contains most AO3 fics as text files, including plenty that are not Waybacked: https://archive.org/details/AO3_final_location

What you’ll need: A browser for .sqlite3 files such as DB Browser for SQLite, an archive manager (e.g. WinRar or 7zip), good internet download speeds, and potentially a LOT of free GBs in storage space.

Not needed but heavily recommended: A download manager such as HTTP Downloader (so you don’t lose the entire download the second your internet stutters).

1. Click here to get to the archive’s files. It’s going to look something like this:

image

ao3_current.sqlite3 and ao3_old_files.sqlite3 are metadata files. The .zip files contain fic, most of them in simple .txt format. The metadata files tell you which fic is in which zip.

The “current” metadata file is recent backups. The “old” metadata file seems to be fics archived until 2020ish.

2. First, download either ao3_current.sqlite3 or ao3_old_files.sqlite3. Now launch DB Browser for SQlite, then File > Open Database Read-Only > open the sqlite3 file. Now click on the Browse Data tab.

3. It’s going to look like this.

image

4. The “Filter in any column” field can be used for keyword searches in, well, any column of this table. Be warned, it takes a while to update, give it time, it’s indexing.

image

5. Here I searched for all fic which gets a hit for the “Avengers” keyword (usually fandom). You can also search for a specific title, author, description, etc.

image

Let’s try to locate the first fic on the list. Click on the field on the left - row 1, column 1.

image

On the right you’ll see the full content of that cell. The most important thing here is the start - ao3_01. This means that the fic is located in ao3_old_files_part01.zip.

6. Download ao3_old_files_part01.zip and open it with your archive manager. It’s 5.5 GB. This will take some time.

7. There are multiple ways to find the fic within the zip file. Probably the easiest way is to use your archive manager’s search/find function to locate the fic by keyword - author is a good bet here, or title if it’s unique enough - and extract that. This way you don’t have to extract the entire archive. Be sure to add a wildcard operator (*) on either side of the keyword.

image

8. Extract the file and you’re done. Note: It will probably be in .txt format, and might be in one giant block of text. Just select-all and paste it to a proper word processor to restore the paragraph formatting.

+ I suppose if you’ve got like a free TB of space you could just skip the metadata step and download all the zip files and unzip them and use a command line search tool for keywords, too. This will work with keywords like title, author and fandom that are part of the file title. The metadata file just contains additional info, like character fields, description, etc.

This isn’t a perfect remedy, there are still fics that got deleted before they could get archived here. But it seems more complete than the stuff on the Wayback Machine on average.

More Posts from Lostinthewanderingblue and Others

3 months ago
☆ Wait, I Have More—I Need To Test Them Too

☆ Wait, I have more—I need to test them too

Who Up Thinking About Baby Yelena And Nat. Arghhh

who up thinking about baby yelena and nat. arghhh


Tags

equal rights for women will never truly be achieved until we have more female noir detectives


Tags
4 months ago

gay man on lesbian women violence is allowed when Billy does it because that was SO fucking funny. you know the billie eilish song was playing in his head. that was SO edgelord teenager of him. I'm still cackling

8 months ago
This Was In My Head All Day At School.

This was in my head all day at school.

Scarlet Witch by Lukus Werneck

Scarlet Witch By Lukus Werneck

Tags
3 months ago
‘Cause I’m Living A Carter-centred Life.

‘Cause I’m living a Carter-centred life.


Tags
  • nohriantomatoes
    nohriantomatoes reblogged this · 1 week ago
  • ambiguouspudding
    ambiguouspudding liked this · 1 week ago
  • and-beastly
    and-beastly liked this · 1 week ago
  • cozy-fish-crow
    cozy-fish-crow liked this · 1 week ago
  • addressanitizer
    addressanitizer liked this · 1 week ago
  • little-kai372
    little-kai372 reblogged this · 1 week ago
  • little-kai372
    little-kai372 liked this · 1 week ago
  • not-a-human-perspective
    not-a-human-perspective reblogged this · 1 week ago
  • aeviriiix
    aeviriiix liked this · 1 week ago
  • aimlessprocrastinator
    aimlessprocrastinator liked this · 1 week ago
  • aimlessprocrastinator
    aimlessprocrastinator reblogged this · 1 week ago
  • fairy-rave
    fairy-rave reblogged this · 1 week ago
  • fairy-rave
    fairy-rave liked this · 1 week ago
  • magicalrascalfanwobbler
    magicalrascalfanwobbler liked this · 1 week ago
  • abelithea
    abelithea liked this · 1 week ago
  • koalamama
    koalamama liked this · 1 week ago
  • fishstixs
    fishstixs liked this · 2 weeks ago
  • caelanthe
    caelanthe reblogged this · 2 weeks ago
  • caelanthe
    caelanthe liked this · 2 weeks ago
  • is-just-maria
    is-just-maria liked this · 2 weeks ago
  • paradoxicalpsychic
    paradoxicalpsychic reblogged this · 2 weeks ago
  • raindropcastles
    raindropcastles reblogged this · 2 weeks ago
  • raindropcastles
    raindropcastles liked this · 2 weeks ago
  • joyousfart
    joyousfart liked this · 2 weeks ago
  • savedlinks
    savedlinks reblogged this · 2 weeks ago
  • matthewbeilschmidts
    matthewbeilschmidts liked this · 2 weeks ago
  • nohriantomatoes
    nohriantomatoes reblogged this · 2 weeks ago
  • werewolvestolovers
    werewolvestolovers reblogged this · 2 weeks ago
  • bonerot19
    bonerot19 liked this · 2 weeks ago
  • mayormaynotbeacryptid
    mayormaynotbeacryptid liked this · 2 weeks ago
  • thetravellinglamp
    thetravellinglamp liked this · 2 weeks ago
  • harasharaved
    harasharaved liked this · 2 weeks ago
  • lostinthewanderingblue
    lostinthewanderingblue reblogged this · 2 weeks ago
  • sparkypantaloons
    sparkypantaloons reblogged this · 2 weeks ago
  • sparkypantaloons
    sparkypantaloons liked this · 2 weeks ago
  • babiebobohu
    babiebobohu reblogged this · 2 weeks ago
  • mooncakes722
    mooncakes722 liked this · 2 weeks ago
  • leodanbrock
    leodanbrock liked this · 2 weeks ago
  • forlaterlist
    forlaterlist reblogged this · 3 weeks ago
  • forlaterlist
    forlaterlist reblogged this · 3 weeks ago
  • globsterflobber
    globsterflobber liked this · 3 weeks ago
  • yiakye
    yiakye liked this · 3 weeks ago
  • tumblingghosts
    tumblingghosts liked this · 3 weeks ago
  • aristocraticteacup
    aristocraticteacup liked this · 3 weeks ago
  • majolinelives
    majolinelives liked this · 3 weeks ago

Greyspaces on ao3. dc blog is everythingandthekitchensink

299 posts

Explore Tumblr Blog
Search Through Tumblr Tags