Archive

Updated: 03/10/2024 by Computer Hope

Archive may refer to any of the following:

Shelves of hard copy paperwork in an archive

1. An archive is a site or location with a vast amount of information about a topic that can be downloaded or browsed. Archives help users with research and allow them to learn more about a topic being discussed. For example, Computer Hope can be considered an archive of computer information.

When something is placed in an archive, it is said to be archived.

2. Archive describes a file containing multiple files that are usually compressed.

3. The Internet Archive (archive.org) is a non-profit founded in 1996 that's been backing up web pages since it was founded and now also stores old texts, audio, moving images, and software. Using the Wayback Machine, you can enter the URL (uniform resource locator) of any web page to see historical versions of it over the years. For example, the archive of the Computer Hope site has thousands of saves since 1999.

With the Wayback Machine, you can view the history of almost any website and find information that's no longer published online.

Playing games

The Internet Archive offers an online collection of thousands of older games that can be played online and for free through your browser.

Watching movies

The Internet archive has archived over 85,000 movies, films, and videos that can all be watched for free and without ads.

4. With e-mail, archiving is moving or storing e-mail messages to be accessed later. This feature is helpful for recordkeeping and when you're on the fence about deleting specific e-mail messages.

Backup, Research, Save, Software terms, Tarball, Unarchive