How To Find A Deleted Work On AO3.

How to find a deleted work on AO3.

Perhaps you have some favorite fics on AO3 that suddenly disappeared because the author deleted the work or deactivated. Here's how to find and read those works again using the Wayback Machine.

To locate a deleted work using Wayback, first you need the Works number. This is most easily found if you remember the author's user name. Type this format into the Wayback Machine search box: archiveofourown.org/users/AUTHOR'SNAME You will get crawl results, i.e. Saved 2 times between May 31, 2020 and January 25, 2021. Since I know when this author deactivated, I'm going to choose the first link.

This takes you to the author's Dashboard. To get the Works number, click on the link to the Work you want to read. You will not be able to open the Work, but you will get the Works number. It is the 8 digit code after /works/ in the URL.

Using this code, go back to the Wayback search box and enter archiveofourown.org/works/11111111?view_full_work=true (the 11111111 is the Works number). You will see the entire work as posted on the crawl date.

Please be respectful that the author has chosen to no longer publicly disseminate the work and keep it for your private use.