# Download your site

You can download a complete copy of any finished build as a ZIP file: every page, image, style and script, ready to put on any static web host. Use it as a backup, before you [retire WordPress®](https://wranglepress.com/docs/retire-wordpress), or to move the site somewhere else. Your site is yours.

## Get the download

1. Open the site in the dashboard and find **Download a copy** (owners and admins).
2. Click **Prepare a download**. It packs the live build (or the newest good build if the site isn't live).
3. Small sites are ready almost at once. Large ones take a few minutes: the page updates by itself.
4. Click **Download**.

You can also ask your [AI assistant](https://wranglepress.com/docs/ai-assistants): "prepare a download of the Acme site and give me the link".

## Big sites and slow connections

Downloads can be large, so they **resume** if they're interrupted. Your browser's download list usually offers **Resume**; download managers do it automatically. From a terminal:

```
curl -C - -o site.zip "PASTE-THE-DOWNLOAD-LINK"
```

Run the same command again after an interruption and it carries on where it stopped.

- Download links work for **24 hours**. After that, open the site page again for a fresh link to the same download (resuming still works).
- Prepared downloads are kept for **7 days**.

## What's in the ZIP

| File | What it is |
|---|---|
| `index.html`, `about/index.html`, … | Every page, each in its own folder, so addresses stay the same |
| `wp-content/…` and other folders | Images, fonts, styles and scripts |
| `_query/…` | Pages whose address has a query string, like `/?p=12` (see below) |
| `404.html` | Your "page not found" page |
| `_redirects` | Your redirects, in the format Cloudflare Pages and Netlify read |
| `README.txt` | What the copy contains |

Links in the pages point at your public domain, so host the copy on the same domain. Contact forms send to WranglePress's form relay, which only works while WranglePress serves the site: on another host, switch them to a form service.

### Sites with "plain" permalinks

If WordPress uses addresses like `/?p=12` (Settings → Permalinks → Plain), a static host can't tell those pages apart: it ignores everything after the `?`. So each one is saved in a `_query` folder (`/?p=12` becomes `_query/p-12/index.html`), and the links between your pages are updated to match. Redirects from such addresses are left out of `_redirects`, because static hosts would apply them to the whole path; links to them go straight to where they redirected.

Links from other websites to the old `?p=` addresses will show the page at the path instead, usually your home page. To keep them working, switch WordPress to another permalink setting and run a build before downloading.

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Canonical page: https://wranglepress.com/docs/download-your-site · Last updated 2026-10-24