Frequently asked questions

Why do you archive 4chan?

Threads on 4chan.org are alive for a relatively short time and get removed after awhile. This site archives all threads on certain boards to preserve them for later viewing.

How do you archive 4chan?

We use a fetcher software called Asagi to download threads and images in real time. We use software called FoolFuuka for delivering this web front end. Advanced features like search and statistics are also provided with FoolFuuka.

How do I contact you/administrator of this site?

Email: admin@4plebs.org

X: @4plebs

Discussion Board: >>>/plebs/ (deprecated)

Reports

This site has a report feature that lets you request removal of any thread, post or image. Report button is included in all post. Please remember to give a valid reason for removal of content.

Valid reasons for post/image/thread removal:

• Child pornography (See Dost test criteria)
  
• Violent materials or other illegal content such as terror, gore, animal abuse, etc.
• Personally identifiable information (See NIST definition)
  
• Copyrighted material not permitted under fair use doctrine (See fair use factors)
  

Reports may be removed for any reason. We make no promises that your report will be acted upon. Images can be removed and then banned from reappearing on the archive. Other removal request should be submitted via email admin@4plebs.org.

Will you remove libel?

Email us and we can talk.

How do I use search operators?

By default all words in your search query are matched. Just enter your search terms and posts including those words will be shown. You can use search operators to narrow down results.

• Use "" to search for exact sentence matches. Example "hello world" will return posts with that exact sentence
• Use pipe character "|" between words for OR search. Example hello|hi will return posts with either of those words
• Using "-" before a word will exclude posts containing that word. Example hello -world will return posts with that contain "hello" but no "world"

Why is the search not showing all the results?

We had to implement a cutoff because unfiltered searches were causing the site to become slow and even sometimes go down entirely. As our search index grows constantly with new content, we can't always process unlimited queries without hitting our hardware limits. Think of it like expecting Google to instantly return results for every single website on the entire internet. It's just not possible to do that without massive resources. This keeps the site fast and stable for everyone.

If you can't even do X, then why do you run the site?

This sounds like some entitled boomer logic. We're a small team running this site in our spare time with limited servers and zero external funding. For free! We're doing our best to make it useful to as many people as possible. If a feature you want isn't working the way you'd like, you're welcome to contribute more optimized code, donate hardware or just run your own archive instead. We aim to prioritize stability for the broader number of users over catering to your every individual demand. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few in this case.

How long do you store full images for?

Currently around 12 months. As long as possible.
Removed files will be uploaded to archive.org from now on.
List of data dumps here.

What is ghost posting?

It's a way of continuing discussion after the thread in question has been removed from 4chan. Ghost posts will only appear on 4plebs and they will only bump the thread up in the ghost index. You can't post images with ghost posts.

What was the deal with not4plebs?

not4plebs.org was a containment archive for /sp/. It was started on 1. March 2015 and it was merged to this archive in 1. September 2015.

Do you have an Application Programming Interface (API) and what are it's limitations?

Yes we have several JSON API endpoints. Quick examples:

Index

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