2w ago

YSK: there's a browser extension called "SingleFile", which allows you to save any page into a single HTML file.

www.getsinglefile.com

SingleFile – Effortlessly Save and Preserve Web Pages

It also works with JavaScript-heavy websites like Mastodon and Youtube, which the standard "Save Page" feature implemented in all browsers usually fails to save, though some features like collapsibles are missing.

31 comments

Am I missing something? How is this different from CTRL+S
Edit: clicked on link and saw demo video. Pretty cool, saves all images and assets without having that big folder of stuff
I use httrack for this type of thing.
HTTrack Website Copier - Offline Browser https://www.httrack.com/html/fcguide.html
- Tested SingleFile today. Very cool. Thanks for sharing!
- This takes a snapshot of the HTML elements from when they were loaded in your browser. If the page loads content dynamically, HTTrack won't save it but this can. (i.e. this works better on crappy modern sites that need JS to even just load the article text...)
Don't most browers offer this as a default option?
- A property secured site won't serve its css and js when requested from a non configured domain (such as localhost), so the html is the only part that will work when you save the page as.
  
  Selecting "Save as" is not the same as "view while offline".
  "Save as" is just a legacy function that has been passed down to Save the HTML into a file. It's not used to "save" pages or sites to view offline.
  The ability to properly Save a page to view offline is already included in most browsers. Even Edge has that functionality built into it.
Cool. But also, https://offpunk.net/
This is not really for your average super-busy html page, but I love it for checking blogs.
Really useful extension.
It's a wonderful extension. Wish it played nice with the Just Read extension, but that's my only complaint.
What's the use case? I can't imagine why I would want to save the interface on a YouTube page, or any similar interactive page. If anything I'd just want the relevant media or text.
- Is youtube what people see as "the internet" nowadays? There are millions of websites out there with unimaginable troves of valuable information that isnt available anywhere else. When you actually do anything productive like research, art, engineering, cooking, etc. you often look for very specific info and when you find it you might want to archive it, because websites constantly just disappear forever, never to be seen again. Preserving the exact formatting is often very important too.
  
  This doesn't answer my question. There were two examples given in the OP, YouTube and Mastodon (which I don't use).
  Research, engineering, and cooking are all things I do and I can't think of a case where I'd want to save all the Javascript on a web page. If anything most interfaces are way too heavy these days. Usually saving a media file, or a pdf, or copy/ pasting text, or at most a screenshot is perfectly fine.
  What do you end up using this for?
- I can’t imagine why I would want to save the interface on a YouTube page
  Archiving a community post, for example.
- I just listened to an audiobook, where the author constantly said "you can find a free example of this on the website", but the material is no longer available on the website. At least not for free.
- What's a "youtube"?
Try to avoid installing extensions, they have too much privilege in the browser.
- Check your privilege, SingleFile!
- Hmm but they're so useful.
How does this improve on "Print to PDF" built into every browser and/or OS?
- It stores the actual HTML structure and assets, so you can still view the page as it was more-or-less intended instead of it getting split up across print pages.
I use this to save webtoon chapters ☺️
I use this to save the job listing of every job I apply to, for reference when I get a call back and the listing has been taken down. You can highlight a section of the page and it smartly saves just the page content needed to contain the highlighted portion. Really keeps the size down.
that's cool. also you can use stuff like htrack to backup web pages and make them into zim files for software like kiwix
Works like a charm
You can also use it to save directly to Karakeep if you are behind a locked site and Karakeep can't archive it for you.

31 comments