Append vs Replace: Two Ways to Append or Replace Task URLs From the Scraper
Two scrapes of the same shop, an hour apart, and you do not want the second run to erase the first. That is exactly the moment to think about whether to append or replace task urls, because the side panel gives you both choices when it hands results to a download task. Pick the wrong one and you either lose URLs or pile up duplicates.
The three handoff choices from the side panel
When the Image Scraper finishes a scan, it does not force everything into one bucket. You can create a brand-new task from the results, add the URLs to a task you already have, or overwrite a task’s existing list. Whichever target you choose gets highlighted and marked as a draft for review, so nothing downloads until you have looked it over. That draft flag is your safety net.
When to append or replace task urls
The decision comes down to what you want the target task to contain afterward.
- Append adds the new URLs onto whatever the task already holds. Use it when you are collecting across several pages or several sessions and every batch belongs together, for example scraping page two, then page three, into one growing product task.
- Replace swaps the task’s URLs for the fresh set. Use it when the previous list is stale, the page changed, or your first scrape grabbed the wrong region and you want a clean slate without deleting the task and rebuilding its settings.
Append protects history; replace gives you a reset. Knowing which outcome you are after makes the choice obvious before you click.
Keep duplicates out when you append
Appending has one predictable side effect: the same image URL can land in the task twice if it appeared in both scrapes. That is where the built-in URL deduplication earns its keep. It detects duplicate URLs, lets you strip them automatically or pick which to keep by hand, and gives you an undo if you cut too much. Run it after an append and the growing list stays clean instead of bloating with repeats.
Review the draft before it downloads
Because the target task is marked draft, the handoff is a checkpoint, not a commit. Open the highlighted task, confirm the count looks right, glance at the URLs, and only then trigger the download. Bulk Image Downloader From URL List keeps your pasted URL list intact through all of this, so an append or a replace changes the task you chose and nothing else. If something looks off, you can undo a dedupe pass or simply replace the list again.
Where it fits a multi-page collection
Most large jobs are not a single scan. You scrape a category, hit the next page, scrape again, and repeat across a dozen views. Append is the natural fit for that rhythm: each scan feeds the same growing task, so by the end you have one consolidated list instead of a dozen scattered ones. If a page returns junk, replace lets you wipe just that contribution by re-scanning cleanly and overwriting, rather than unpicking entries by hand. Saved rules and sessions complement this, letting you resume a paused collection and keep feeding the same task over multiple sittings.
A simple rule of thumb
Building a collection from many pages? Append, then dedupe. Starting over on a single task? Replace. Treat the draft state as your review step every time, and you will reliably append or replace task urls without ever wondering what happened to the work you already saved. The two options exist so one task can grow or reset on purpose, never by accident, and the highlight plus draft flag make sure you always see which task you just changed before a single image downloads.