About LooksBack
Updated March 2026
LooksBack is a search engine that indexes historical archives, bringing photographs, newspaper front pages, documents, audio recordings and film from major public institutions into a single searchable interface. Everything is linked back to the original source.
What we index
We search three major public archives simultaneously. Each maintains its own collections and retains full ownership of its content. LooksBack presents search results and links directly to the original items.
- National Archive (loc.gov) -- 170 million items including 12 million newspaper pages from 1756 to 1963, historical photographs, maps, manuscripts and sound recordings.
- Open Archive (archive.org) -- 35 million items covering books, audio, film, software and 866 billion archived web pages dating from 1996.
- Media Commons (commons.wikimedia.org) -- 100 million freely licensed images, documents and media files contributed by institutions and researchers worldwide.
How it works
When you search, we send your query to each archive and return the combined results ranked by relevance. Results are cached for up to 12 hours to reduce load on the underlying archives. Clicking any result title or the "View source" link takes you directly to the original item on its host archive.
We do not host or reproduce any of the content you find here. All materials remain the property of their respective archives and creators.
Who is this for
LooksBack is designed for historians, researchers, journalists, students, educators and anyone who wants to explore the historical record. The archives we index have spent decades digitising materials that were previously accessible only in person. We make those collections searchable from a single place.
Copyright and content
Most materials in these archives are in the public domain in their country of origin. Some items carry specific licences -- always check the original source page before reproducing any material commercially. LooksBack does not grant any rights to third-party content.
Contact
Questions or feedback: [email protected]