---
id: python-documentcloud
version: "4.8.1"
license: MIT
license_treatment: permissive
maintenance: active
---

# python-documentcloud — A simple Python wrapper for the DocumentCloud API

License: permissive · Maintenance: active · Downloads: 259.6K/mo

## What it is and what it does

python-documentcloud is a client library that abstracts the DocumentCloud REST API into Python objects and methods. It handles authentication, rate limiting, and HTTP communication so you can work with documents and projects programmatically rather than through the web interface. The package wraps core DocumentCloud operations—retrieving public and private documents, uploading PDFs, organizing into projects, and downloading extracted text and images—into a straightforward Python API.

The library depends on requests for HTTP, ratelimit and token-bucket for API throttling, python-dateutil for timestamp handling, and pyyaml and fastjsonschema for configuration and validation. It's designed for developers who need to integrate DocumentCloud into Python workflows, such as batch processing documents, automating uploads, or building tools that query a DocumentCloud repository.

Use it for:

- Batch upload a folder of PDFs to DocumentCloud and organize them into projects programmatically.
- Query and download extracted text from documents in your DocumentCloud account for analysis or indexing.
- Automate document management tasks like tagging, organizing, or updating metadata across many documents.
- Build a Python application that reads from or writes to a shared DocumentCloud repository.
- Extract and process images that DocumentCloud has already extracted from your PDF collection.

## Worth the install?

AI-flagged interpretation of the facts above — verify before relying.

A Python wrapper for the DocumentCloud API that lets you retrieve, upload, and manage documents and projects on documentcloud.org, including downloading extracted text and images from PDFs.

Yes. The package is actively maintained, has low install friction, carries a permissive MIT license, and has no known vulnerabilities. Install it if you need to work with DocumentCloud programmatically from Python; skip it if you only use the web interface or need features not yet wrapped by the library.

## Install

pip install python-documentcloud
uv add python-documentcloud
poetry add python-documentcloud

## Installing python-documentcloud

Before you install: Low install friction with a pure-Python wheel. Active maintenance: last commit 2026-06-29, released 46 days ago. Ten runtime dependencies including requests, ratelimit, and token-bucket for API interaction.

License in practice: MIT license (permissive) means you can use, modify, and distribute this package freely in commercial and private projects with minimal restrictions.

Quickstart:

pip install python-documentcloud

from documentcloud import DocumentCloud

client = DocumentCloud(username='your_email', password='your_password')
documents = client.documents.all()

Requires valid DocumentCloud account credentials (username and password or API token) to authenticate with the service.

Verify before relying:

- Whether the package supports modern authentication methods beyond username/password (e.g., API tokens or OAuth).
- Performance characteristics when working with large document collections or bulk uploads.
- Whether all DocumentCloud API endpoints are fully wrapped or if some require direct HTTP calls.

## Package facts

- License: MIT (permissive)
- Python support: unspecified
- Install friction: low
- Maintenance: active
- Downloads: 259.6K/month (top 15,000 on PyPI)
- Known vulnerabilities: none known

## Tags

documentcloud api wrapper, upload pdf to documentcloud, retrieve documents from documentcloud, document management api client, pdf extraction and organization, documentcloud python client, manage documentcloud projects, api-client, document-management, pdf-handling

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