Memento Time Travel

Q: Is Memento Time Travel down?

Yes, for good. Los Alamos National Laboratory announced the shutdown on August 7, 2025, and the service closed in September 2025. It is not a temporary outage.

Q: What did Memento Time Travel do?

It searched many web archives at once. You gave it a URL and a date, and it found the archived copy closest to that date across public archives, including the Internet Archive.

Q: What is the best alternative?

The Wayback Machine for most people. It is the largest public web archive and it is free. For the old multi-archive search, run MemGator, or use the Web Archives browser extension. More options are on our Memento Time Travel alternatives page.

Q: Does the Memento protocol still work?

Yes. The protocol is a published standard, RFC 7089, and major web archives still support it. Only the Time Travel service and its API were switched off.

Q: Was Memento Time Travel free?

Yes. The search and the API were free and needed no account. MemGator, the self-hosted option, is free as well.

One search across many web archives. Shut down in September 2025.

Shut downWeb archivesFree

See tools that still work ↓Last verified: 6 Nov 2026

Fact-checked

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FreeNo account

2015 to 2025Years online

RFC 7089Memento protocol

OfflineSince Sep 2025

The short version

What happened to Memento Time Travel?

Memento Time Travel is gone. Los Alamos National Laboratory, which ran it, announced on August 7, 2025 that the service would close by the end of September 2025, citing budget and organizational changes.

For ten years it did one job well. You typed a URL and a date, and it searched many public web archives at once, then showed the copy closest to that date. It ran from 2015 to 2025 as an official service of the Los Alamos Research Library. The Memento project page now lives on as a volunteer-run static site.

Bottom line: to find an old version of a page today, start with the Wayback Machine. If you need the old "search every archive at once" behavior, run MemGator, a free aggregator from the ODU team behind Memento. The tools below still work today.

Use these instead

Tools that still work

Memento Time Travel is gone, but each of these still finds or saves old copies of web pages today.

Wayback MachineThe largest public web archive

archive.todaySave a copy of any page right now

Web ArchivesCheck many archives from your browser

MemGatorRun your own Memento aggregator

Arquivo.ptSearch old pages by words, not just URL

Resurrect PagesFirefox add-on for dead links

What it did

Key features

One search, many archives

A single lookup checked the Internet Archive and other public web archives, so you did not have to search each one.

Closest copy to a date

Pick a URL and a date, and it returned the snapshot nearest to that moment, with links to the other copies it found.

Built on an open standard

It used the Memento protocol (RFC 7089), which adds a time dimension to HTTP. Major archives, including the Internet Archive, support it.

Free API

Developers could query the same aggregator from code. The API went offline with the site.

What it cost

Memento Time Travel pricing

Option	Price	Status today
Time Travel search	Free	Offline since September 2025.
Time Travel API	Free	Offline with the site.
MemGator (self-hosted)	Free	Still available. You run it yourself, as a binary or Docker image.

Time Travel never charged. It was funded as a research service.

Honest fit

What still works, and what doesn't

Still works

The Memento protocol, built into major web archives
Looking up old pages directly in the Wayback Machine
Running your own aggregator with MemGator
Saving a page now, so you have a copy later

No longer available

The Time Travel search page at timetravel.mementoweb.org
The Time Travel API
Robust Links, its sister service for archive-backed links

What people ask

Memento Time Travel FAQ

Is Memento Time Travel down?

Yes, for good. Los Alamos National Laboratory announced the shutdown on August 7, 2025, and the service closed in September 2025. It is not a temporary outage.

What did Memento Time Travel do?

It searched many web archives at once. You gave it a URL and a date, and it found the archived copy closest to that date across public archives, including the Internet Archive.

What is the best alternative?

The Wayback Machine for most people. It is the largest public web archive and it is free. For the old multi-archive search, run MemGator, or use the Web Archives browser extension. More options are on our Memento Time Travel alternatives page.

Who built it?

Los Alamos National Laboratory and Old Dominion University. The Memento work came from the Research Library at Los Alamos and the Web Science and Digital Library Research Group at ODU, with funding from the Library of Congress and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Does the Memento protocol still work?

Yes. The protocol is a published standard, RFC 7089, and major web archives still support it. Only the Time Travel service and its API were switched off.

Was Memento Time Travel free?

Yes. The search and the API were free and needed no account. MemGator, the self-hosted option, is free as well.

Keep comparing

Memento Time Travel alternatives

Memento Time Travel alternativesEvery tool that does a similar job

Wayback Machine alternativesIf the Wayback Machine has no copy

Internet archive toolsTo save and store pages yourself