Posted in: Books, Pop Culture, Technology | Tagged: AO3, archive of our own
Archive of Our Own Could Be Down for the Next 2-4 Weeks
The fanfiction site Archive of Our Own, better known as AO3, estimates that service restoration could take around 2 weeks, but may take up to 4 weeks.
Article Summary
- Archive of Our Own is down for extended maintenance, with AO3 estimating service restoration could take 2 to 4 weeks.
- AO3 says it may return sooner in a degraded state, though temporary shutdowns could continue while the issue is fixed.
- Founded in 2008, Archive of Our Own now hosts more than 18.8 million works across over 83,250 fandoms.
- AO3 is run by the nonprofit OTW, while related services like Fanlore remain available during the Archive of Our Own outage.
The website Archive of Our Own, better known as AO3, has announced it will be down for an extended period. What started as a sudden, unplanned maintenance shutdown last night has shifted to a timeline of two to four weeks before the biggest fanfiction hosting website on the internet returns.
Shared from the AO3 Status Page:
Update – We estimate that service restoration for #AO3 will take around 2 weeks but it could be up to 4 weeks. We are hopeful that we will be able to bring the site back up in a degraded state sooner. If that does happen, there may be times when the site has to be brought down temporarily until this is fully resolved. Please stay tuned for further info.
Oct 29, 2026 – 17:41 UTC
Identified – AO3 maintenance is in progress. We expect it to take at least 12 hours, but it may take longer. We will provide updates as necessary.
Oct 29, 2026 – 09:03 UTC
Investigating – AO3 is down for maintenance.
Oct 29, 2026 – 07:13 UTC
Archive of Our Own was founded in 2008 as a counter to the ongoing censorship that fanfiction authors were facing in spaces like Livejournal and Fanfiction.net at the time. The website was and remains invite-only and remained in “beta” form until April 2026. At the time of writing, the AO3 hosts more than 18,820,000 works across over 83,250 fandoms and original works. The site is run by the non-profit group, The Organization for Transformative Works (OTW), so AO3 and the other sites the OTW runs are completely funded by donations and run by volunteers. On top of AO3, the OTW runs other sites and services:
- Fanlore: “Fanlore is a fandom wiki devoted to preserving the history of transformative fanworks and the fandoms from which they have arisen.” Want to know what that saying that appears to show up in fandom means that no one is taking the time to explain? Fanlore is where you go.
- Open Doors: “Open Doors offers shelter to at-risk fannish projects and archives. Through several subprojects, they preserve different kinds of fanworks and artifacts of fan culture.”
- Legal Advocacy: Legal Advocacy is a team of legal professionals committed to protecting and defending fanworks from commercial exploitation and legal challenges. They also strive to educate fans about developments in law that could affect fandom.
- Transformative Works and Cultures (TWC): TWC is an international, peer-reviewed journal that publishes articles about transformative works and fan communities.
While the AO3 is down, Fanlore appears to be working, though it was a little slow when clicking links at the time of writing. The internet is, of course, losing its mind about this, but we can assume that the OTW and the team at AO3 will make some sort of announcement to try to quell the chaos as soon as possible. There is no reason to assume anything you have posted is lost, not right now, and if you’re really that worried, the WayBack Machine does exist.
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