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Open a .webarchive file on Windows, Android or any browser

A Safari web archive rebuilt in this tab: the page as saved, one .html any browser opens, and every picture and font inside. Nothing is uploaded, nothing on it runs, and nothing it did not save is fetched.

The file

Drop a .webarchive here, or choose one

What a web archive is

A .webarchive is what Safari saves when you choose File, Save As and pick Web Archive, and what some Mac and iPhone apps hand over when a page is shared. It keeps the page and every picture, stylesheet and font it used in one file, so the page still looks right years later. Only Safari opens one. On Windows, Android or Linux it is a file nothing recognises, and Word shows it as a screen of garbled characters.

Inside it is a property list, Apple's structured file format, almost always the binary kind. It holds the page's own bytes and address, then each resource the page loaded with the address it came from, and a whole archive of the same shape for each frame. AMBER reads that in this tab and rebuilds the page from it.

What it does to the page

  • Everything saved is put back where the page expects it. Pictures, stylesheets, fonts, pictures inside stylesheets, imported stylesheets and frames are all rebuilt from the archive, each resolved against the address it was saved from.
  • Nothing missing is fetched. Anything the page asked for that Safari did not save is left out and listed, because loading it from the internet now would tell the site that the page was opened, when, and from where.
  • Nothing runs. Scripts, event handlers, javascript: links, plugins and automatic redirects are taken out. A saved page is for reading what was on it, and a web archive is a file somebody sent you.
  • The .html it saves stays that way. It carries a content security policy that allows no network at all, so wherever it is opened later it cannot load anything or send anything.

What it cannot do

A page that builds itself with script after it loads, as many web apps do, may come out incomplete, because the archive holds the page as it arrived rather than as it looked, and the script that finished it is not run. Pictures that load as you scroll are put back when Safari had already fetched them. For a page that must look exactly as it did, the honest answer is a PDF made on the Mac that saved it.

To keep the page as a PDF from here, save it as one .html file, open that in any browser and print it to PDF. To check a link in it before visiting, PHISHLENS reads it without going there.

Questions people ask about AMBER
How do I open a .webarchive file on Windows?

Drop it on this page. AMBER reads the Safari web archive in your browser and shows the page as it was saved, with its pictures, stylesheets and fonts. Save it as one .html file and it opens in any browser on Windows. Nothing is uploaded and nothing needs installing.

Can I convert a .webarchive to HTML?

Yes. Save it as one .html file. Every picture, stylesheet and font the archive holds is written into that single file, so it does not depend on the internet or on the site still existing. Scripts are left out and it carries a policy that allows no network, so it is also safe to keep and share.

How do I convert a .webarchive to PDF?

Save it here as one .html file, open that in any browser and print it to PDF. On the Mac that saved it, Safari's File, Export as PDF gives the closest copy of how it looked.

Why does my .webarchive look like gibberish in Word or Notepad?

Because it is not text. It is a binary property list, Apple's structured file format, holding the page and every file it used. It has to be taken apart by something that reads that format, which is what this page does.

Why are some pictures missing?

A web archive holds what Safari had loaded when it was saved. Anything the page asked for that is not in the file is left out and listed rather than fetched from the internet, because fetching it would tell the site that the page was opened. Pictures that load as you scroll are only there if Safari had already loaded them.

Is it safe to open a .webarchive from someone else?

Here, yes: nothing in it runs. Scripts, event handlers, javascript: links, plugins and redirects are taken out before the page is shown, and it is shown in a sandboxed frame with no network. The archive itself can carry every script the page had, which is why none of them is kept.

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