How to copy a website to read offline

Archived from the old blog. Original URL: https://tomauger.gitlab.io/posts/2018-06-23-how-to-copy-website-to-read-offline/.

How to mirror a website using wget and an open source GUI to achieve the same thing.

Wget

To mirror a website using wget run the following:

wget --mirror --convert-links --adjust-extension --page-requisites --no-parent https://site.example.com

or the shorthand version:

wget -mkEpnp https://site.example.com

Description of the parameters from the wget man page:

• --mirror turns on options suitable for mirroring including recursion, time-stamping, sets infinite recursion depth and keeps FTP directory listings.
• --convert-links converts links in the document to make them refer to the locally downloaded files.
• --adjust-extension will add the appropriate file extension to downloaded files if it doesn’t already exist. The extension is determined by the MIME type of the downloaded file.
• --page-requisites causes wget to download all the files that are necessary to properly display a given HTML page. This includes such things as inlined images, sounds, and referenced stylesheets.
• --no-parent prevents wget from ascending to a parent directory when retrieving recursively.

HTTrack

If you prefer a GUI based tool then take a look at HTTrack. It’s open source, cross platform (the Windows version is called WinHTTrack) and comes with extra features such as pausing/resuming mirroring, updating previously downloaded mirrors, excluding certain links, and a screen for configuring lots of advanced options.

References

• wget man page
• HTTrack