Make Site Scrapes Repeatable With Saved Rules and Sessions
If you scrape the same site every week, rebuilding the same filters, selectors, and folders by hand is wasted effort. The smarter move is to reuse scraping settings on a site — capture the working setup once, then quick-apply it on every return visit so a repeat job takes seconds.
Reuse scraping settings on a site by saving a rule
Saved rules are the foundation. Once you have a scrape dialed in for a site — the right filters, download settings, and CSS selectors — save it as a rule. The next time you visit, quick-apply that rule and the whole configuration snaps back into place. To reuse scraping settings on a site reliably, this beats trying to remember which dimensions filter and which folder structure you used last month.
A saved rule typically captures things like:
- Filter choices — dimensions, file type, domain, text-in-URL.
- Download settings — folders, ZIP, filename tokens.
- CSS selectors that target the exact elements you care about.
Target precisely with CSS selectors
Generic scans grab everything; CSS selectors let you grab only what matters. By saving selectors that point at a specific gallery, product grid, or content area, you reuse scraping settings on a site that consistently isolate the right images and ignore the chrome around them. On a site with a stable layout, the same selectors keep working run after run.
Use sessions to pick up where you left off
Rules remember how to scrape; sessions remember what you scraped. Scraper sessions let you save results, keep a history, resume an interrupted run, and even compare two sessions to see what changed since last time. You can also export and import a session as JSON to move it between machines or hand it to a teammate.
- Resume a long scrape that got interrupted.
- Compare this week’s results against last week’s to spot new or removed images.
- Export a session as JSON for backup or sharing.
Share and standardize across a team
Repeatability is even more valuable when more than one person does the work. Because sessions export and import as JSON, a single well-tuned setup can become a shared standard rather than living in one person’s head. A teammate who builds the perfect scrape for a recurring source can hand it off, and everyone runs the same filters, selectors, and folder structure — so results stay consistent no matter who runs the job. That consistency is what turns ad hoc scraping into a dependable process: the output looks the same every week, comparisons between runs are meaningful, and onboarding someone new is a matter of importing a file rather than explaining a dozen settings. Saved rules and exportable sessions together make a workflow that survives beyond any single session or person.
Turn recurring work into a routine
Put rules and sessions together and a recurring scrape becomes a one-click routine rather than a setup chore. Tasks can be created, duplicated, and reordered, and a saved rule plus a session means you reopen, quick-apply, and run. Everything stays local in your browser with no account and no upload, so your saved configurations never leave your machine. To reuse scraping settings on a site and make repeat scrapes effortless, install Bulk Image Downloader From URL List, save your rules and CSS selectors, and lean on sessions for resume and compare.
