Written by Admin on 2025-05-07

Downloading All WordPress Plugins: A Guide

WordPress is one of the most popular content management systems (CMS) in the world, powering over 40% of all websites on the internet. One of the reasons for its popularity is the vast library of plugins available to users. These plugins can add functionality to your website, improve performance, and enhance the user experience.

However, downloading plugins one by one can be time-consuming, especially if you manage multiple WordPress sites. In this article, we will guide you on how to download all WordPress plugins in one go.

Step One: Install WP-CLI

WP-CLI is a command-line interface for managing WordPress websites. It allows you to perform various tasks quickly, such as installing and updating plugins.

To use WP-CLI, you will need to SSH into your server. Once you're logged in, run the following commands:

cd ~ curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/wp-cli/builds/gh-pages/phar/wp-cli.phar chmod +x wp-cli.phar sudo mv wp-cli.phar /usr/local/bin/wp Once installed, you can confirm it's working by typing wp into the command line.

Step Two: Create a List of Installed Plugins

Before you download all WordPress plugins, you need to create a list of all the plugins installed on your site. To do this, run the command:

wp plugin list --status=active --format=csv | cut -f2 -d ,

This command will list all active plugins on your site, and cut will remove the description of each plugin, leaving you with a list of plugin names.

Copy the list of plugin names to a text file.

Step Three: Download Plugins

Now that you have a list of plugins, you can use WP-CLI to download each one. To do this, run the following command:

xargs -L 1 wp plugin install < plugins.txt

Replace plugins.txt with the name of the text file you created in Step Two.

This command will download each plugin listed in the text file. If a plugin already exists, it will be skipped.

Step Four: Activate Plugins

After downloading all WordPress plugins, you need to activate them. To do this, run the following command:

xargs -L 1 wp plugin activate < plugins.txt

This command will activate each plugin listed in the text file.

Conclusion

Downloading all WordPress plugins can be a time-saving task with WP-CLI. By following the steps outlined in this article, you can streamline the plugin installation process and quickly add new features to your WordPress site.