AO3 scheduled outage 2026: 15 hours of downtime to bring better search filters
Archive of Our Own (AO3) will go offline for 15 hours on Wednesday, January 21, 2026, for a scheduled outage. Learn about the new search features and community reactions.
Brace yourselves, fanfiction enthusiasts. Archive of Our Own (AO3) is going offline this Wednesday for a significant hardware and software update. The scheduled maintenance is expected to last approximately 15 hours, leaving millions of readers and writers momentarily bereft of their favorite stories. However, the platform's community is handling the news with its trademark humor and resilience.
AO3 scheduled outage 2026: Enhancing the Archive
The primary goal of this downtime is to implement long-awaited improvements to bookmarks and series search functions. According to official announcements, users will soon be able to filter and sort works by word count—a feature frequently requested by the community. Other technical fixes include resolving issues where search results glitched due to alphanumeric tags and ensuring draft tags remain private.
Community Resilience and 'Digital Fasting'
AO3 veterans, who survived the 2023 DDoS attack that lasted nearly 48 hours, aren't breaking a sweat over this 15-hour window. On platforms like Tumblr and X, fans are sharing tips on how to download fics for offline reading or suggesting alternative hobbies for the day. This tradition of humorous lamentation has become a unifying force for the Hugo Award-winning site's global user base.
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