diff --git a/crawl4ai/content_filter_strategy.py b/crawl4ai/content_filter_strategy.py
index 0909be33d..ab99a793c 100644
--- a/crawl4ai/content_filter_strategy.py
+++ b/crawl4ai/content_filter_strategy.py
@@ -566,6 +566,8 @@ def __init__(
         min_word_threshold: int = None,
         threshold_type: str = "fixed",
         threshold: float = 0.48,
+        preserve_classes: list = None,
+        preserve_tags: list = None,
     ):
         """
         Initializes the PruningContentFilter class, if not provided, falls back to page metadata.
@@ -578,11 +580,15 @@ def __init__(
             min_word_threshold (int): Minimum word threshold for filtering (optional).
             threshold_type (str): Threshold type for dynamic threshold (default: 'fixed').
             threshold (float): Fixed threshold value (default: 0.48).
+            preserve_classes (list): CSS class names to always keep regardless of score (optional).
+            preserve_tags (list): HTML tag names to always keep regardless of score (optional).
         """
         super().__init__(None)
         self.min_word_threshold = min_word_threshold
         self.threshold_type = threshold_type
         self.threshold = threshold
+        self.preserve_classes = set(preserve_classes) if preserve_classes else set()
+        self.preserve_tags = set(preserve_tags) if preserve_tags else set()
 
         # Add tag importance for dynamic threshold
         self.tag_importance = {
@@ -682,6 +688,16 @@ def _remove_unwanted_tags(self, soup):
             for element in soup.find_all(tag):
                 element.decompose()
 
+    def _is_preserved(self, node):
+        """Check if a node matches the preserve whitelist."""
+        if self.preserve_tags and node.name in self.preserve_tags:
+            return True
+        if self.preserve_classes and "class" in getattr(node, "attrs", {}):
+            node_classes = set(node["class"]) if isinstance(node["class"], list) else {node["class"]}
+            if node_classes & self.preserve_classes:
+                return True
+        return False
+
     def _prune_tree(self, node):
         """
         Prunes the tree starting from the given node.
@@ -692,6 +708,10 @@ def _prune_tree(self, node):
         if not node or not hasattr(node, "name") or node.name is None:
             return
 
+        # Skip pruning for preserved nodes — always keep them
+        if self._is_preserved(node):
+            return
+
         text_len = len(node.get_text(strip=True))
         tag_len = len(node.encode_contents().decode("utf-8"))
         link_text_len = sum(
diff --git a/tests/test_pruning_preserve_whitelist_1900.py b/tests/test_pruning_preserve_whitelist_1900.py
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..01a46817b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/tests/test_pruning_preserve_whitelist_1900.py
@@ -0,0 +1,258 @@
+"""
+Tests for #1900: PruningContentFilter preserve_classes and preserve_tags.
+
+Verifies that whitelisted classes/tags are always kept regardless of
+pruning score, while non-whitelisted content is still pruned normally.
+"""
+import pytest
+from crawl4ai.content_filter_strategy import PruningContentFilter
+
+
+# ── HTML fixtures ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
+
+GITHUB_COMMENT_HTML = """
+<html><body>
+<article class="main-content">
+    <h1>Discussion: Feature Request</h1>
+    <p>This is a long paragraph about the feature request with enough words to
+    pass the pruning threshold easily. The feature would add support for document
+    extraction in the crawl pipeline, enabling binary documents like PDFs and
+    DOCX files to be processed alongside HTML pages.</p>
+
+    <div class="comment">
+        <div class="comment-header">
+            <span class="author"><a href="/user/alice">alice</a></span>
+            <time>commented Apr 6, 2026</time>
+        </div>
+        <div class="comment-body">
+            <p>I think this is a great idea. We should implement it using a
+            pluggable strategy pattern so users can bring their own extraction
+            backend. This would keep the core library lean while supporting
+            many document types.</p>
+        </div>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="comment">
+        <div class="comment-header">
+            <span class="author"><a href="/user/bob">bob</a></span>
+            <time>commented Apr 7, 2026</time>
+        </div>
+        <div class="comment-body">
+            <p>Agreed with alice. The abstract base class approach makes sense.
+            We could also add a built-in implementation for PDFs since crawl4ai
+            already has PDFContentScrapingStrategy that could be wrapped.</p>
+        </div>
+    </div>
+</article>
+
+<nav class="site-nav">
+    <a href="/">Home</a>
+    <a href="/about">About</a>
+</nav>
+<footer class="site-footer">
+    <p>Copyright 2026</p>
+</footer>
+</body></html>
+"""
+
+ATTRIBUTION_HTML = """
+<html><body>
+<div class="article">
+    <p>Long article content that should definitely pass the threshold because it
+    contains enough words and text density to score well in the pruning algorithm.
+    This paragraph discusses the implementation details of the feature.</p>
+    <div class="byline">By <strong>Jane Smith</strong></div>
+    <div class="author-bio">Jane is a senior engineer at Example Corp.</div>
+</div>
+</body></html>
+"""
+
+SIMPLE_HTML = """
+<html><body>
+<div class="content">
+    <p>Main content paragraph with enough text to pass pruning easily. This
+    discusses important topics that should be preserved in the output.</p>
+    <cite class="source">Source: Example Research Paper, 2026</cite>
+</div>
+</body></html>
+"""
+
+
+# ── Default behavior (no whitelist) ──────────────────────────────────────
+
+class TestDefaultBehavior:
+
+    def test_default_no_preserve(self):
+        """Without whitelist, default pruning behavior is unchanged."""
+        f = PruningContentFilter()
+        assert f.preserve_classes == set()
+        assert f.preserve_tags == set()
+
+    def test_main_content_kept(self):
+        """Long paragraphs should still be kept."""
+        f = PruningContentFilter()
+        result = f.filter_content(GITHUB_COMMENT_HTML)
+        combined = " ".join(result)
+        assert "feature request" in combined.lower()
+
+    def test_nav_footer_still_removed(self):
+        """Nav and footer should still be removed even with whitelist on other things."""
+        f = PruningContentFilter(preserve_classes=["author"])
+        result = f.filter_content(GITHUB_COMMENT_HTML)
+        combined = " ".join(result)
+        assert "site-nav" not in combined
+        assert "Copyright 2026" not in combined
+
+
+# ── preserve_classes ─────────────────────────────────────────────────────
+
+class TestPreserveClasses:
+
+    def test_preserve_author_class(self):
+        """Elements with 'author' class should be kept when whitelisted."""
+        f = PruningContentFilter(preserve_classes=["author"])
+        result = f.filter_content(GITHUB_COMMENT_HTML)
+        combined = " ".join(result)
+        assert "alice" in combined
+        assert "bob" in combined
+
+    def test_without_preserve_author_may_be_stripped(self):
+        """Without whitelist, short author spans may be stripped."""
+        f = PruningContentFilter()
+        result = f.filter_content(ATTRIBUTION_HTML)
+        combined = " ".join(result)
+        # The main content should be there
+        assert "article content" in combined.lower()
+        # byline might be stripped (short, low density)
+
+    def test_preserve_byline(self):
+        """Preserving 'byline' class keeps attribution."""
+        f = PruningContentFilter(preserve_classes=["byline"])
+        result = f.filter_content(ATTRIBUTION_HTML)
+        combined = " ".join(result)
+        assert "Jane Smith" in combined
+
+    def test_preserve_multiple_classes(self):
+        """Multiple classes can be preserved."""
+        f = PruningContentFilter(
+            preserve_classes=["author", "comment-header", "byline"]
+        )
+        result = f.filter_content(GITHUB_COMMENT_HTML)
+        combined = " ".join(result)
+        assert "alice" in combined
+        assert "bob" in combined
+
+    def test_preserve_class_not_in_html(self):
+        """Preserving a class that doesn't exist in the HTML is harmless."""
+        f = PruningContentFilter(preserve_classes=["nonexistent-class"])
+        result = f.filter_content(GITHUB_COMMENT_HTML)
+        # Should work normally, no crash
+        assert len(result) > 0
+
+    def test_empty_preserve_classes(self):
+        """Empty list should behave like no whitelist."""
+        f = PruningContentFilter(preserve_classes=[])
+        assert f.preserve_classes == set()
+
+
+# ── preserve_tags ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
+
+class TestPreserveTags:
+
+    def test_preserve_cite_tag(self):
+        """Preserving 'cite' tag keeps source attribution."""
+        f = PruningContentFilter(preserve_tags=["cite"])
+        result = f.filter_content(SIMPLE_HTML)
+        combined = " ".join(result)
+        assert "Example Research Paper" in combined
+
+    def test_preserve_time_tag(self):
+        """Preserving 'time' tag keeps timestamps."""
+        f = PruningContentFilter(preserve_tags=["time"])
+        result = f.filter_content(GITHUB_COMMENT_HTML)
+        combined = " ".join(result)
+        assert "Apr 6, 2026" in combined
+
+    def test_preserve_multiple_tags(self):
+        """Multiple tags can be preserved."""
+        f = PruningContentFilter(preserve_tags=["cite", "time"])
+        result = f.filter_content(SIMPLE_HTML)
+        combined = " ".join(result)
+        assert "Example Research Paper" in combined
+
+    def test_empty_preserve_tags(self):
+        """Empty list should behave like no whitelist."""
+        f = PruningContentFilter(preserve_tags=[])
+        assert f.preserve_tags == set()
+
+
+# ── Combined ─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
+
+class TestCombined:
+
+    def test_both_classes_and_tags(self):
+        """Both preserve_classes and preserve_tags work together."""
+        f = PruningContentFilter(
+            preserve_classes=["author"],
+            preserve_tags=["time"],
+        )
+        result = f.filter_content(GITHUB_COMMENT_HTML)
+        combined = " ".join(result)
+        assert "alice" in combined
+        assert "Apr 6, 2026" in combined
+
+    def test_whitelist_does_not_override_excluded_tags(self):
+        """Nav/footer/header are removed before pruning — whitelist can't save them."""
+        f = PruningContentFilter(preserve_tags=["nav"])
+        result = f.filter_content(GITHUB_COMMENT_HTML)
+        combined = " ".join(result)
+        # nav is in excluded_tags and removed before pruning runs
+        # preserve_tags only affects the pruning phase
+        # This is expected — excluded_tags are structural boilerplate
+
+
+# ── _is_preserved method ─────────────────────────────────────────────────
+
+class TestIsPreserved:
+
+    def test_is_preserved_by_class(self):
+        from bs4 import BeautifulSoup
+        f = PruningContentFilter(preserve_classes=["author"])
+        soup = BeautifulSoup('<span class="author">Alice</span>', "html.parser")
+        node = soup.find("span")
+        assert f._is_preserved(node) is True
+
+    def test_not_preserved_without_match(self):
+        from bs4 import BeautifulSoup
+        f = PruningContentFilter(preserve_classes=["author"])
+        soup = BeautifulSoup('<span class="date">2026</span>', "html.parser")
+        node = soup.find("span")
+        assert f._is_preserved(node) is False
+
+    def test_is_preserved_by_tag(self):
+        from bs4 import BeautifulSoup
+        f = PruningContentFilter(preserve_tags=["cite"])
+        soup = BeautifulSoup('<cite>Source</cite>', "html.parser")
+        node = soup.find("cite")
+        assert f._is_preserved(node) is True
+
+    def test_not_preserved_empty_whitelist(self):
+        from bs4 import BeautifulSoup
+        f = PruningContentFilter()
+        soup = BeautifulSoup('<span class="author">Alice</span>', "html.parser")
+        node = soup.find("span")
+        assert f._is_preserved(node) is False
+
+
+# ── Serialization (for Docker API) ───────────────────────────────────────
+
+class TestSerialization:
+
+    def test_params_stored(self):
+        """preserve_classes and preserve_tags should be stored as attributes."""
+        f = PruningContentFilter(
+            preserve_classes=["author", "byline"],
+            preserve_tags=["time", "cite"],
+        )
+        assert f.preserve_classes == {"author", "byline"}
+        assert f.preserve_tags == {"time", "cite"}
