pystak is a command line tool to download books from various sources written in Python 3. Currently the following sources are supported:

• Anna's Archive
• Internet Archive
• Indian Culture
• Telegram Channel

This tool allows both searching and downloading of books from the above sources. More sources can be added in future. Feel free to raise a an issue or pull request as the case may be.

pystak requires python 3 and a bunch of other dependencies mentioned in requirements.txt file.

Before running pystak the python environment needs to be setup correctly. Here we are creating a python virtual environment and installing all the dependencies. The instructions are provided for Linux, but ideally these should be identical for any UNIX like operating system.

The following Change to the folder/directory containing

python -m venv venv
. venv/bin/activate
pip install -r requirements.txt

Creating virtual environment and installing dependencies is one time process. In subsequent runs you just need to activate the virtual environment:

. venv/bin/activate

To deactivate the virtual environment run the command: deactivate.

pystak supports search and download subcommands which allow searching and downloading of books respectively. Different sources may support additional sub commands. pystak command exits only after all files have been downloaded. You can exit from the command at any time by pressing ctrl+c. pystak starts to resume downloading from where it left on subsequent reissuing of the same command.

A summary of the entire process is printed when the process exits.

If you have bunch of book download URLs handy, you can download books from a source by issuing the command:

python3 pystak.py <source> download <url-1> [<url-2> ...]

Following is a collection of sample command for each supported source:

• Anna's Archive:

  python3 pystak.py annas download https://annas-archive.org/md5/e34b90617bbb35cc4ea90180cfc93798

• Internet Archive:

  python3 pystak.py archive download https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.12873

• Indian Culture:

  python3 pystak.py indian-culture download https://indianculture.gov.in/archives/question-treatment-approver-delhi-lahore-conspiracy-case

• Telegram Channel:

  python3 pystak.py telegram -i 12345678 -a 0123456789abcdef0123456789abcdef -p +911234567890 download -c @PLANDEMIC message-id

  In the above command:

  • -i is the api_id
  • -a is the api_hash
  • -p is telegram phone number
  • -c is the telegram channel user name

  Typically, search is more useful subcommand in case telegram. download is used directly only if you know the message ids beforehand. You can create your own telegram application from here

To search for a book from a given source containing search text in title issue the command:

python3 pystak.py <source> search search text

Once search is over, you will be presented with a list of books from which you can select a bunch of books to download.

Following is a collection of sample command for each supported source:

• Anna's Archive:

  python3 pystak.py annas search economic and political weekly

• Internet Archive:

  python3 pystak.py archive search CWMG

• Indian Culture:

  python3 pystak.py indian-culture search kakori conspiracy dase

• Telegram Channel:

  python3 pystak.py telegram -i 12345678 -a 0123456789abcdef0123456789abcdef -p +911234567890 search -c @channel search text

  In case of telegram, pystak will search for search text within all the messages of the specified @channel having a pdf file as attachment whose file name contains the string search text, and will not search within the message text itself,

For more information, command line option -h or --help can be used.

In case of Anna's Archive, books are downloaded using torrent file. As a result the actual download can take long time dependening upon the availability of peers. As a result pystak will continue running for long time. If you want to download more files from Anna's Archive in the meantime, issue appropriate command in another command line console. The new files will be added to long running process via RPC calls. At any time feel free to press ctrl+c to stop download. A subsequent execution of the same command as before should enable resuming of download from where it started.

Issue the command

python3 pystak.py annas status

to check whether another pystak command is executing somewhere.

The download is fully resumable on running the command again.

For some files you might see a message like: access to item is restricted. Such files are either not downloadable or require login. When downloadable use the following tool: https://github.com/MiniGlome/Archive.org-Downloader to download these files.

In case of Indian Culture, an additional list command is supported. See command line help for more details. A sample command:

python3 pystak.py indian-culture list https://indianculture.gov.in/freedom-archive/rarebooks

Downloads are not resumable but fully downloaded files are not downloaded again.

Downloads are not resumable but fully downloaded files are not downloaded again.

The word pustak in Hindi means book.

python + pustak => pystak