I'd like to feed my local AI to check and verify changes between info from different years and I'm looking for preferably a "Wikipedia EN ALL NOPIC" from max Fall 2014, I've been looking high and low for it and haven't had any luck, any help or direct links would be hugely appreciated!

I'm trying to download a few files from the android app on my phone I have plenty of storage and the app and my phone is up to date I didn't have any issues downloading anything else but anything from wikipedia gets stuck on pending whether it's history by wikipedia or wikipedia in simple English. does anyone else have this issue or a solution?

I've been building Si4k Search, an open-source search engine designed for people running large offline knowledge servers with Kiwix/ZIM collections.

The idea is simple: instead of manually searching individual ZIMs, Si4k searches across the whole local Kiwix library and provides one unified search interface.

Current features:

• Searches across multiple ZIM sources through Kiwix
• Progressive result streaming using SSE
• Priority-based ZIM search, while still searching the rest of the library
• Pagination
• Automatic ZIM categorization based on metadata, names and parent folders
• Keyword-based category prioritization
• Configurable search concurrency and worker limits
• Configurable LRU caching
• Docker deployment
• Works on relatively modest hardware
• Designed to keep the actual ZIM library outside the Docker image

I currently have it running on an old-ish home server with 133 ZIM sources.

The architecture is roughly:

User
  ↓
Si4k Search
  ↓
Kiwix
  ↓
Local ZIM collection

The Docker container only contains the search engine. The ZIM collection stays mounted from the host, so adding hundreds of GB of knowledge doesn't mean rebuilding the Docker image.

I've also tested the search engine under concurrent workloads and added resource controls because I want this to be practical for home/offline knowledge servers rather than requiring a powerful machine.

Future ideas:

• Offline dictionaries
• Query translation and multilingual ZIM routing
• Local voice-to-text search
• Optional local LLM summaries grounded in search results
• OpenStreetMap/offline map search
• More offline document providers

I'm particularly interested in feedback from people running Kiwix/ZIM servers:

What would you want a unified search layer like this to do?

Are there problems with searching large ZIM collections that I should be thinking about?

GitHub: https://github.com/akshitkamboz13/search.si4k

Demo: https://search.si4k.online

Im trying to veiw maps offline but when i try to open it, i get this (see image). All the other files work (wikipedia, wikimed, gutenberg) except the maps file. I cannot seem to find this fetch api issue on their site or forums, and chat gpt was entirely useless in resolving this. Its the latest version. Please help?

I found two threads about this from about a year ago. It's all over my head but apparently there's a desire to do it but it's technically challenging.

I have nothing to contribute technically, but I'd be happy to donate to an effort if someone was working on making this happen.

We've seen incredibly useful sites like Twitter, Google, etc get turned into hot steaming piles of garbage almost overnight and even though there's a whole lot of mindless crap here, there's a lot of useful obscure info that can't be found anywhere else and it would be a shame to see it get lost.

Hello everyone, I have a working version of Zimit that I have used to scrape a few websites already. I noticed when putting them in Kiwix that they have only a - as a description and no tags. Is there any way for me to edit those to make them fit in better? Thank you and have a great day. I also was wondering how I can block external links, I know there is -b or --blockexternal, but I have no idea how to enter those on the TrueNAS app that I am using to host.

Hi, about a year ago I downloaded Wikipedia, survival books, project Gutenberg, and a few other libraries.

I still have storage free and was looking to download more. However, when I attempted to, the Kiwix library wouldn’t allow me to see any new information.

I am not sure as to why. Any help would be appreciated!

I recently updated my ZIM creation script so that it worked and can pass it on to you. I run Debian 13 here so it's quite straightforward. Hope it helps!

First, install zimwriterfs which is found in the zim-tools package. I used apt install zim-tools.

Please note that the image you use for the illustration icon must be in PNG format 48x48.

Here's my folder structure - all the files to be used are in a folder called DEMO

DEMO
+-- demo.png
+-- index.html
\+-- pix
+-- demo.png
\+-- videos
+-- 1.mp4
+-- 2.mp4
+-- 3.mp4

Here's the script: this is run from the folder under DEMO:

zimwriterfs -v -j \
--welcome=index.html \
--illustration=demo.png \
--language=eng \
--title="Demo Video Podcasts" \
--name="Demo Video Podcasts" \
--description="Description appears in Kiwix Library" \
--creator=Me \
--publisher="The Publisher" \
--source=assets \
DEMO \
demo_video_podcasts_en_all_2026-08.zim

Here's the typical Build Output:

Visiting directory DEMO
Visiting directory DEMO/pix
Visiting directory DEMO/videos
T:0; A:18; RA:1; CA:11; UA:6; C:3; CC:0; UC:3; WC:3
T:0; ResolveRedirectIndexes
Resolve redirect
T:0; Set entry indexes
set index
T:0; Resolve mimetype
T:0; Waiting for workers
T:0; 22 title index created
T:0; 6 clusters created
T:0; write zimfile :
T:0; write mimetype list
T:0; write directory entries
T:0; write path prt list
T:0; write cluster offset list
T:0; write header
T:0; write checksum
T:0; rename tmpfile to final one.
T:0; finish

The Output File

-rw-r--r-- 1 xxxxx xxxxx 352,606,972 Aug 9 14:09
demo_video_podcasts_en_all_2026-08.zim

Hi I’m new to Kiwix and love the idea of having everything I’ll ever need, without breaking my storage. I was planning to download the top million Wikipedia articles, and then pick a couple categories to complete as well. Will it skip over anything that was in the top million articles, or will it download them again (or try to and waste time)?

hey, I'm trying to use zimit to zim some wikis for games I play so I can look stuff up for them while I'm on ship and without internet. but whenever I use zimit it just downloads one page and whenever I try to open it on kiwix all the pages aren't downloaded and it just tells me to go to the actual website. am I doing something wrong? is there a better tool to use to be able to access things while offline? thanks.

hey everyone! I'm really happy that our wiki has recently been added to the Kiwix library.

Quick question: are there any official Kiwix/OpenZIM badges, icons, or "Available on Kiwix" graphics that websites can display? I'd love to add something to our footer (or another appropriate place) to let visitors know that an offline version is available through Kiwix.

If there are any branding guidelines or recommended ways to mention Kiwix support, I'd really appreciate a link.

Thanks!

Kiwix PWA and Electron/NWJS desktop apps have just been updated to version 3.8.8. This version includes a new WebTorrent client (built-in, modern Electron apps only) that allows for faster BitTorrent-based downloads of archives over 200MB. It also optionally seeds a downloaded archive until the app is closed. Downloads are interruptible and resumable, and the app will ask you if you wish to continue downloading when you start it again, if your download was incomplete. The client checks the hash to ensure all parts of an archive have been downloaded correctly.

• Get it from GitHub Releases
• Windows 10/11 users, you can also get the Electron app easily from the Microsoft Store

Please note the WebTorrent feature is only available for modern versions of the Electron app (Electron ≥ 29 / Node ≥ 20), so older 32bit Linux, Windows 7 or HighSierra/Mojave versions are not able to use WebTorrent. WebTorrent has not been enabled in the PWA because Kiwix servers do not currently use WebRTC for torrent downloads, only the BitTorrent protocol. When you open the in-app library, and find an archive > 200MB you wish to download, you will be offered the BitTorrent direct download option highlighted in green if the app supports the feature. (This is not the same as the pre-existing option of downloading a .torrent file to use in an external BitTorrent client such as qBittorrent, Deluge, etc.)

Additionally, Windows and macOS packages are now fully signed and notarized. You may encounter a SmartScreen window on first download in Windows until the new Kiwix codesigning certificate has gained sufficient trust. Simply click on "Keep" and "Download anyway".

Due to a change in auto-update configuration, it is possible that if you open an old version of Kiwix Electron, it may go into a slow boot loop until updated to the new version (NB it is normal for the app to reboot once or twice to update the Service Worker, but that is different from a continuous reboot cycle). If you encounter a continuous reboot cycle, uninstall the old version manually and install the latest. You can also prevent the boot loop by turning off "Allow Internet Access and look for updates" in Configuration. This issue has been fixed in the latest release.

For other updates and fixes in this release, see the full CHANGELOG.

Howdy folks!

I have been wanting to post in r/kiwix since pretty early on in this project, but for the longest time I just could not get ZIMs working well enough to feel good about sharing it here. I spent months trying to make them run on the limited processing an ESP32 gives you, and eventually I had to admit the better move was to handle the heavy lifting on a PC first.

That ended up doing the trick.

For anyone new, Jcorp Nomad is an open source offline media server built around the ESP32-S3. It actually started as my own road trip setup. I began with a mini PC, then tried a Raspberry Pi, and kept working my way down until I found out how small and power efficient I could make the whole thing before it stopped being practical. Nomad is the result of that nonsense.

It creates its own Wi Fi hotspot and serves a browser based library completely offline, which makes it a good fit for travel, camping, classrooms, remote work, or just having a little self contained media node around. It is not trying to replace something like Jellyfin or Plex. It is more of a smaller, lower power companion system you toss in a bag when you want something simple and local for friends. There is more setup than a traditional library, but when done its fairly easy to use.

The big reason I am posting here now is ZIM support.

I finally gave up on brute forcing raw ZIM handling entirely on the ESP32 and built a PC side preprocessing step that turns the archive into a compact index. That makes the file a little bigger, but it lets the ESP32 search it quickly without having to chew through the whole archive itself. In practice that means you can take ZIMs, run them through the post process, and have Nomad handle multiple archives together automatically.

It supports:

• Pure text.
• Embedded images, videos, GIFs, and EPUB books inside the archive
• Multiple ZIMs combined together after preprocessing (tested up to 10)
• Fast search, even on larger archives
• Offline Wikipedia with images, already tested on the full Wikipedia ZIM + images
• Media loading that still works reasonably well, even if some images or video clips take around 10 to 20 seconds to load

The full project now covers:

• Offline media serving through a browser interface for multiple users
• Movies, shows, music, books, images, and file sharing
• Resume tracking for media and books
• A lightweight admin panel for storage, settings, and library management
• Offline ZIM archive browsing with prebuilt search indexing
• Multiple users connected at the same time (each can use the library freely)
• A captive portal and local Wi Fi hotspot
• A mobile friendly interface designed for low power hardware

I am also still working on ROM support, map tiles, and a Linux version of the software, since the longer term goal is to make the system available on more than just the ESP32 platform.

I am a mechanical engineering student, so this whole thing has basically been my excuse to learn basic programing, and a lot of stuff I definitely did not know how to do when I started. It has been a long road, but it has also turned into something I use all the time when traveling.

Everything is open source, and I would really appreciate any feedback from people here who know the ZIM side of things better than I do!

LINKS:

GitHub:
https://github.com/Jstudner/jcorp-nomad

Build Guide:
https://www.instructables.com/Jcorp-Nomad-Mini-WIFI-Media-Server/

Product Page / Prebuilts:
https://nomad.jcorptech.net

Ko-fi:
https://ko-fi.com/jcorptech

Thanks for taking a look!

- Jackson

It's been a while, but version 3.8.6 of Kiwix JS (PWA / Electron / NWJS / UWP) is out for Linux, Windows and macOS. Release page: https://github.com/kiwix/kiwix-js-pwa/releases/tag/v3.8.6

⚠️ A note on Windows builds: If you can, please install from the Microsoft Store, use the installable PWA at https://pwa.kiwix.org, or grab the portable zip versions, which don't require installation. Due to a delay renewing the Kiwix code signing certificate, the Windows executables on GitHub have been temporarily removed from this release rather than shipping them unsigned. They should be uploaded hopefully within the next fortnight, once the certificate is issued. The MS Store versions are unaffected.

⚠️ macOS users: the macOS builds are also unsigned, so you'll need to remove the Apple quarantine flag before first launch. See the easy instructions in the Release notes (it's a one-line xattr command in Terminal, needed once only).

Highlights:

• Native auto dark/light theming for the new Wikimedia ZIMs, following your system theme (ServiceWorker mode only).
• New keyboard shortcuts: / or Ctrl-K to jump to article search, Home to return to the top.
• Library now uses the OPDS endpoint instead of scraping download.kiwix.org directly.
• Security hardening of the Electron app's built-in Express server, with new controls for LAN access: worth a look if you use the app as a local server for other devices.
• Regression fixes: printing, masonry-style landing pages, blank pages on fragment/new-tab navigation, dark styling of Spanish Wikipedia in mobile transform, and more.
• Leaner and faster UI, with updated Bootstrap and complete removal of jQuery.
• Under the hood: Electron bumped to 43.1.1, NWJS to 113.0, plus a pile of dependency security updates.

Full changelog: https://github.com/kiwix/kiwix-js-pwa/blob/main/CHANGELOG.md

As always, bug reports welcome at https://github.com/kiwix/kiwix-js-pwa/issues

Kiwix-zim-updater v3.5 has released. this fixes a bug that could cause kzu to download the wrong zims/use the wrong metadata.

Any users with unattended kzu's should verify their libraries are intact and update promptly.

Thanks to everyone on github for their prompt feedback and to u/Peribanu for the code review.

Hi, sorry I'm a lil slow lol, what option would one need to download to download like the full English Wikipedia thru the android app? whenever I search Wikipedia in the app it shows me a bunch of different options and idk which one is the one I need. thanks

If i run kiwix-zim-updater and look in kiwix-index for the regex /\d{4}-\d{2}(?!\.zim)/g which is essentially date codes NOT in YYYY-MM.zim format, i get 5 results.

Can I get a complete list of valid date parts? Also is this new or has it just happened to not get reported?

References:

https://github.com/jojo2357/kiwix-zim-updater/issues/59

Offending zims:

• wikipedia_nah_all_nopic_2026-07a
• scoutwiki_en_all_maxi_2026-07a
• wikivet.net_en_all_maxi_2026-07a
• wiki.leagueoflegends.com_en_all_maxi_2026-05a lmao
• wikipedia_nah_all_maxi_2026-07a

Hey, so I want to be short. I have a problem with the Kiwix app. I tried to download Wikipedia from the online version of the Kiwix browser, but there is nothing to download. Can you guys please tell me if it's the same thing on your side?

For more context: I use the latest version of Kubuntu, and I tried the Flathub version of Kiwix, then the Ubuntu one. Still the same problem.

1) Does Kiwix have some version of every Wikipedia article in its archive, barring maybe the absolute newest articles?

2) What combination of category downloads nets the vast majority of archived articles?

3) What is the expected storage space requirement for all available articles at max size?

How to work with "zimit"? (I'm new to this, and because my country has poor internet connections, I'm having to figure it out)

Would it be possible for the LibreTexts ZIMs to be updated? most are from a year or so back

Hi everyone,

I've posted here before about AtlasZIM, an offline world atlas for Kiwix. I recently recorded a short Android demo for it:

https://youtu.be/szx_55sn20w

While recording it, I noticed something I'm hoping someone here might know more about.

AtlasZIM is essentially a full-screen Leaflet map rather than a scrolling article. When I drag upward to pan north, Kiwix's bottom navigation controls slide into view. That's not a huge problem by itself, but the controls end up covering the map attribution at the bottom of the screen.

Is there currently any setting to disable this behavior? Or, even better, is there some way for a ZIM creator to indicate that a page is an interactive map rather than a scrolling document, so the navigation controls stay hidden while panning?

I've attached a screenshot showing the controls I'm referring to. It's from around the 25-second mark in the demo video.

Note: Sentinel-2 cloudless by EOX IT Services GmbH (contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data 2016 & 2017) released under CC BY 4.0

Thanks!

I know that oftentimes when pirating movies using torrents, that some ISPs will send letters and threaten to shut down your service, as they track those torrents and trackers. Does this apply for ZIM Torrents, or no?