How to save a web page before it disappears
Pages get redesigned, paywalled, and deleted. Five ways to keep a permanent copy of a web page, from the Wayback Machine to a PDF, and which one fits what you need.
TLDR
- A bookmark is a pointer, not a copy. When the page changes or dies, your bookmark points at nothing.
- For a public record: the Wayback Machine or archive.today. Free, public, sometimes slow.
- For your own copy: a full-page screenshot, a PDF, or a single HTML file. Or a bookmark manager that keeps a snapshot for you.
Why pages disappear
Redesigns, rebrands, paywalls, companies shutting down, blog posts quietly unpublished, and pricing pages changed every quarter. Studies of link rot keep finding the same thing: a big chunk of links from a few years ago are dead or show something different. If you saved a page because of what it said or how it looked, you need a copy.
1. The Wayback Machine
Go to web.archive.org/save, paste the URL, and the Internet Archive takes a copy anyone can see. Free, and it gives you a permanent link to that version.
Downsides: it’s public, it struggles with logged-in pages and heavy scripts, and it’s slow when busy.
2. archive.today
archive.ph does the same thing with a screenshot of the page as well. Handy for pages the Wayback Machine chokes on.
3. Print to PDF
⌘P or Ctrl+P, then Save as PDF. Every browser does it. You get the page as a document, with text you can search. Layouts sometimes break, and cookie banners love to show up in it.
4. A full-page screenshot
The most faithful picture of how a page looked. Chrome, Safari, Firefox, and Edge can all do it without an extension, and the full-page screenshot guide has each one. The catch: it’s a picture, so the text isn’t searchable unless something reads it.
5. SingleFile
The SingleFile browser extension saves a page as one HTML file, with images and styles inside it. Open it in ten years and it still works. The most complete copy you can get, and also the clunkiest to keep organised.
Or let your bookmark manager do it
Doing any of the above for every page is tedious, so most people don’t. Savepad does it on save: every link gets a full-page screenshot at desktop and phone widths and a clean reading copy, on every plan. A weekly check flags links that died or moved, and opening one falls back to your snapshot. On the top plan, watched pages get a fresh snapshot every month they change, which is great for competitor research on pricing pages.
Which one?
| Tool | Public | Keeps how it looked | Searchable text | Effort |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wayback Machine | Yes | Mostly | Not really | Low |
| archive.today | Yes | Yes, with screenshot | Not really | Low |
| No | Roughly | Yes | Medium | |
| Full-page screenshot | No | Yes | Only if read | Medium |
| SingleFile | No | Yes | Yes | High |
| Savepad | No, unless you share it | Yes | Yes | None |
For saving emails the same way, see how to save an email as a PDF.
FAQ
How do I archive a web page for free?
Paste the URL into the Wayback Machine's Save Page Now at web.archive.org/save, or into archive.today. Both keep a public copy for free.
What's the best format to save a web page in?
For how it looked, a full-page screenshot or a PDF. For the text, a reading copy or Markdown. For everything including scripts, a single HTML file from the SingleFile extension.
Do bookmarks keep a copy of the page?
Browser bookmarks don't. Some bookmark managers do: Savepad keeps a full-page snapshot and reading copy of every link, Raindrop does on Pro, and Pinboard on its archive plan.