Use metalink and aria2c to speed up Anna's Archive downloads

01_speed-up-anna-archive-downloads.md

Speed up Anna's Archive Downloads

• Visit Open Shadow Library Uptime Monitor for latest links to Anna's Archive "📚 The largest truly open library in human history."

Gather links

• Visit the slow partner links to gather the slow download URLS

Create a .meta4 file in the following format

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<metalink xmlns="urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:metalink">
  <published>2026-03-30T00:00:00Z</published>
  <origin dynamic="true"><!-- URL from ANNAS ARCHIVE with metadata--></origin>
  <file name="filename.extention">
  <size><!-- file size in bytes --></size> 
  <description>A description of the example file for download.</description>
  <hash type="md5"><!-- can be found in the url--></hash>
  <url location="us" priority="5"><!-- add a single URL per line --> </url>
  </file>
</metalink>

validate the xml file

$ aria2c -S --metalink-file download.meta4
Files:
idx|path/length
===+===========================================================================

Download using aria2c

$ aria2c -s 9 -x 3 --split=10 download.meta4