webarchive

Extract .webarchive files (saved from Safari) into plain HTML/assets using the WebArchiveExtractor CLI. Use when the user wants to unarchive, extract, or convert a .webarchive file.

install

source · Clone the upstream repo

git clone https://github.com/robrohan/WebArchiveExtractor

Claude Code · Install into ~/.claude/skills/

T=$(mktemp -d) && git clone --depth=1 https://github.com/robrohan/WebArchiveExtractor "$T" && mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills && cp -r "$T/skills/webarchive" ~/.claude/skills/robrohan-webarchiveextractor-webarchive && rm -rf "$T"

manifest: skills/webarchive/SKILL.md

How to run WebArchiveExtractor

/Applications/WebArchiveExtractor.app/Contents/MacOS/WebArchiveExtractor [-h] [-o <OutputDirectory>] [-p <URLPrepend>] -i <WebArchiveFile>

Options:

```
-i <WebArchiveFile>
```
— required — path to the
```
.webarchive
```
file
```
-o <OutputDirectory>
```
— directory to write extracted files into (optional; defaults to a directory named after the archive next to it)
```
-p <URLPrepend>
```
— URI prefix to prepend to all asset URLs in the extracted HTML (optional; useful when serving the result from a subdirectory)

Shorthand (no flag):

WebArchiveExtractor website.webarchive

A positional argument is treated as the

-i

value.

Prerequisites

The app must be installed at

/Applications/WebArchiveExtractor.app

. Check with:

test -x /Applications/WebArchiveExtractor.app/Contents/MacOS/WebArchiveExtractor && echo "found" || echo "not installed"

If not found, tell the user to build and install from source (

xcodebuild -project WebArchiveExtractor.xcodeproj

) or drag a release build to

/Applications

To use

WebArchiveExtractor

without the full path, the user can add it to

PATH

export PATH="$PATH:/Applications/WebArchiveExtractor.app/Contents/MacOS/"

Or create a symlink:

ln -s /Applications/WebArchiveExtractor.app/Contents/MacOS/WebArchiveExtractor ~/.local/bin/WebArchiveExtractor

Steps

Check the binary exists using the test command above. If not found, stop and direct the user to install the app.
Determine the input
```
.webarchive
```
file from
```
$ARGUMENTS
```
or ask the user.
Determine the output directory:
- If the user explicitly provided one in
```
$ARGUMENTS
```
  , use that.
- Otherwise, default to
```
~/Downloads/<archive-name>
```
  (where
```
<archive-name>
```
  is the input filename without the
```
.webarchive
```
  extension).
- If the user asks why
```
~/Downloads
```
  is the default, explain: macOS sandboxes the WebArchiveExtractor app, which restricts which directories the CLI can write to. The
```
~/Downloads
```
  folder is one of the few locations reliably accessible, so it's used as the default to avoid silent failures.
Determine (optional) URL prepend from
```
$ARGUMENTS
```
or ask if needed.

Run the extractor using the Bash tool:

/Applications/WebArchiveExtractor.app/Contents/MacOS/WebArchiveExtractor -i "<input>" -o "<output>" [-p "<prepend>"]

If successful, list the output directory contents with
```
ls
```
and summarise:
- The output directory path
- How many files were extracted
- The main HTML file name (if identifiable)
Offer to open the extracted HTML in the browser with
```
open <file>
```
.

Notes

```
.webarchive
```
is a macOS-specific binary plist format used by Safari's "Save As Web Archive" feature.
The CLI and the GUI app are the same binary — running with
```
-i
```
suppresses the GUI.
Running with no arguments launches the GUI instead of extracting anything.