Written by Admin on 2025-05-06

Downloading WordPress with Wget: A Beginner's Guide

If you're new to WordPress or have recently started using it, you might wonder how to download WordPress using the command line interface. This is where a tool like Wget comes in handy.

Wget is a command-line utility that allows you to download files from the web. It is available for most operating systems, including Windows, macOS, and Linux, and is pre-installed on many Linux distributions.

In this article, we'll discuss how to download WordPress using Wget, step-by-step. Let's get started.

Step 1: Open the Terminal

First, open the terminal on your computer. If you're on Windows, you can use Command Prompt or PowerShell, while on macOS and Linux, you can use the default terminal.

Step 2: Change to the Download Directory

Next, navigate to the directory where you want to download WordPress. For example, if you want to download WordPress to your Downloads directory, type the following command:

cd ~/Downloads

Step 3: Download WordPress

Download the latest version of WordPress using the following command:

wget https://wordpress.org/latest.tar.gz

This command downloads the latest version of WordPress as a compressed .tar.gz file.

Step 4: Extract WordPress

After the download is complete, extract the WordPress files using the following command:

tar -xzvf latest.tar.gz

This command extracts the latest.tar.gz file to a directory named wordpress/.

Step 5: Move WordPress to Web Server

Finally, move the WordPress files to your web server. You can do this using an FTP client or by using the command line interface. If you're using the command line interface, navigate to the WordPress directory by typing the following command:

cd wordpress/

From there, you can copy the WordPress files to your web server using the following command:

cp -r * /var/www/html/

This command copies all of the WordPress files to the html/ directory of your web server.

And that's it! You've successfully downloaded and installed WordPress using Wget. Congratulations.

Conclusion

In this article, we discussed how to download WordPress using Wget, a command-line utility that allows you to download files from the web. By following the steps outlined above, you should be able to download and install WordPress without any problems.

Remember that there are other ways to install WordPress, such as using an FTP client or using a one-click installer provided by your web hosting provider. However, downloading WordPress with Wget can be a useful skill to have, especially if you work with command line interfaces often.