How to Download a Plugin or Theme from the WordPress Admin Dashboard

Usually, when you need to download a plugin or a theme from your WordPress website, you need to connect to your website server via FTP or SSH to be able to transfer the files to your computer. But sometimes you don’t have the FTP/SSH credentials or something wrong with your FTP client or anything else and you just have your WordPress admin credentials. In this guide, I will show you how to get the theme/plugin files directly from your WordPress admin panel.

Typically, if I need to download a plugin or theme that’s running on a remote server, I connect to that server via FTP or SSH and transfer the files to my local machine. However, sometimes I don’t have access to the server for one reason or another, but I DO have the username and password to the WordPress admin dashboard. Below, I’ll outline how I download a plugin or theme from the WordPress admin dashboard using a free plugin called Advanced Code Editor.

1. Log in to the WordPress admin for the site where the plugin/theme you want is installed.
2. Go to Plugins > Add New. Search for and install the Advanced Code Editor plugin or Download Plugins and Themes from Dashboard
3. Go to Plugins > Installed Plugins and activate it.
4. Go to Plugins > Editor if you want to download a plugin, or Appearance > Editor if you want to download a theme.
5. Select the plugin/theme from the dropdown menu and click select
6. Click the far-right button to download it
7. Download WordPress Themes

Alternative method: 

To download any theme files from your WordPress dashboard, you’ll need to install a plugin called Download Theme

To install it, go to your WordPress dashboard -> Plugins -> Add New and search for Download Theme and then click Install Now then Activate.

Once the plugin is activated, go to your themes page by clicking Appearance -> Themes. Hover over any theme and you’ll find a Download button added to each theme.

Download WordPress Plugins

Similarly, there is another plugin called Download Plugin and it will allow you to download any plugin from your WordPress dashboard.

Once the plugin is installed and activated, go to your WordPress plugins page and you will find a download / download zip button added to each plugin.

I hope you find this a useful guide to download any WordPress theme or plugin from your WordPress dashboard without FTP or SSH. If you have any questions, please use the comments section below.