FetchIt

FetchIt downloads web documentation and converts it to a single Markdown file.

Features

• Downloads multiple pages at the same time.
• Removes headers, footers, sidebars, and menus.
• Converts HTML to standard Markdown.
• Saves images locally and updates links.
• Detects programming languages automatically.
• Saves progress to resume later.
• Uses C++ for fast parsing.

Installation

Prerequisites

• Python 3.8 or newer
• C++ compiler (like GCC or Clang)
• make utility

Arch Linux

Install using yay from the AUR:

yay -S fetchit-git

System-Wide Installation (Other Systems)

Use make to install system-wide.

sudo make install

To remove the program later:

sudo make uninstall

Local Virtual Environment

Use a virtual environment to avoid system conflicts.

python3 -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate
pip install -e .

Usage

Run the tool from the command line.

fetchit <URL> -o <OUTPUT_FILE> -c <CONCURRENCY> -r <RETRIES>

• Run fetchit without arguments to see the help menu.
• The C++ extension compiles automatically on the first run.

Options

Option	Description	Default
URL	Starting website address	Required
-o, --output	Output file name	output.md
-c, --concurrency	Maximum pages to download at once	10
-r, --retries	Number of retries for failed downloads	3
--no-images	Skip downloading images and use remote URLs	Disabled
--tree	Save output as a directory tree of markdown files	Disabled
--verbose	Print detailed debug logs	Disabled
-v, --version	Print the current version	Disabled

Note on --no-images: This flag skips downloading image files to your local disk, but the images are still embedded in the Markdown using their original absolute web URLs (e.g., ![image](https://reddit.com/...)). This means the images will still load and display when you view the Markdown online or in an editor, as long as you have an active internet connection!

Example

fetchit https://developer.android.com/compose -o compose.md -c 20

• Crawls the Android Compose documentation.
• Downloads 20 pages at a time.
• Saves output to a single file compose.md.
• Saves images in the images/ directory.

Directory Tree Example

You can save the documentation as a file tree instead of a single markdown file:

fetchit https://developer.android.com/compose -o docs --tree

This will create a docs/ folder containing the file structure:

docs/
 |- compose/
 |   |- index.md
 |   |- setup.md
 |   |- ui/
 |       |- button.md

Architecture

• C++ Extension: Parses sitemaps and checks URLs quickly.
• Python Crawler: Manages network requests and retries.
• Python Extractor: Cleans HTML and converts it to Markdown.