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FAQ

Can I run my own instance?

Yes! We host a public canonical version of the Matrix Public Archive at archive.matrix.org that everyone can use but feel free to also run your own instance (setup instructions in the readme).

How is this different from `view.matrix.org`?

https://view.matrix.org/ (https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-static) already existed before the Matrix Public Archive but there was some desire to make something with more Element-feeling polish and loading faster (avoid the slow 502's errors that are frequent on view.matrix.org).

And with the introduction of the jump to date API via MSC3030, we could show messages from any given date and day-by-day navigation.

How do I opt out and keep my room from being indexed by search engines?

All public Matrix rooms are accessible to view in the Matrix Public Archive. But only rooms with history visibility set to world_readable are indexable by search engines.

Also see https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-public-archive/issues/47 to track better opt out controls.

For archive.matrix.org, you can ban the @archive:matrix.org user if you don't want your room content to be shown in the archive at all.

Why does the archive user join rooms instead of browsing them as a guest?

Guests require m.room.guest_access to access a room. Most public rooms do not allow guests because even the public_chat preset when creating a room does not allow guest access. Not being able to view most public rooms is the major blocker on being able to use guest access. The idea is if I can view the messages from a Matrix client as a random user, I should also be able to see the messages in the archive.

Keep in mind that only rooms with history visibility set to world_readable are indexable by search engines. The Matrix Public Archive doesn't hold onto any data (it's stateless) and requests the messages from the homeserver every time. The archive.matrix.org instance has some caching in place, 5 minutes for the current day, and 2 days for past content.

Technical details

The main readme has a technical overview of the project. Here are a few more details.

How do I figure out what version of the Matrix Public Archive is running?

Just visit the /health-check endpoint which will return information like the following:

{
  "ok": true,
  "commit": "954b22995a44bf11bfcd5850b62e206e46ee2db9",
  "version": "main",
  "versionDate": "2023-04-05T09:26:12.524Z",
  "packageVersion": "0.0.0"
}

How does the archive room URL relate to what is displayed on the page?

We start the end of the date/time specified in the URL looking backward up to the limit.

Why does the time selector only appear for some pages?

The time selector only appears for pages that have a lot of messages on a given day/hour/minute/second (more than the configured archiveMessageLimit).

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FAQ