Tutorials
How to clone a website and download it as a ZIP
A step-by-step method for downloading a public website — pages, stylesheets, scripts, images and fonts — into one archive you can open offline.
By Mira Lindqvist, Tools engineer, Toolspea · Published 2026-08-02 · Updated 2026-08-15 · 9 min read
What cloning actually copies
A clone is a copy of what a server sends to a browser: the HTML document, the stylesheets and scripts it references, and the images, fonts and media those files pull in. It is not a copy of the server. Databases, admin areas, form handlers and anything generated per-request stay behind.
That distinction sets your expectations. A marketing site, documentation section or blog clones almost perfectly. A checkout, dashboard or search results page will look right and do nothing, because the code that made it work never left the origin server.
Step by step with Toolspea Website Cloner
Open Website Cloner and paste the address you want. Start with the exact page rather than the domain when you only need one document — a single-page clone finishes in seconds and shows you the quality of the capture before you commit to a larger run.
- Paste the URL and pick a mode: single page, selected pages, or entire website.
- For multi-page runs, let discovery read robots.txt, the XML sitemap and on-page links, then tick the pages you want.
- Open advanced options to toggle stylesheets, scripts, images, fonts, media and documents, and to set page, depth and delay limits.
- Start the job and watch the live counters for pages and assets.
- Download the ZIP, extract it, and open index.html in any browser.
Choosing the right mode
Single page is for a reference: one article, one landing page, one layout you want to study. Selected pages suits a documentation section or a product range — you see the discovered list and choose only what matters, which keeps the archive small and the run polite.
Entire website is for archiving a whole small site. Set a page cap and a crawl delay before you start. On a large site, use a path prefix so you clone /docs or /blog rather than everything at once; several focused archives are easier to work with than one enormous one.
Why some pages come back incomplete
The most common cause is client-side rendering. If a site builds its content in the browser with JavaScript, an HTTP fetch receives an almost empty shell, and the clone reflects that shell. Toolspea flags pages that look like unrendered single-page apps so you are not surprised.
Other causes are ordinary: a resource sits behind authentication, a file exceeds the per-asset size limit, or the server refuses automated requests. Every skipped item appears in the assets.csv file inside the ZIP together with the reason, so you can decide whether to retry or ignore it.
What to check in the archive
Open clone-report.html first. It lists the pages captured, the assets downloaded, the total size and everything that failed. Then open index.html and click through a few internal links — they should resolve to files inside the folder rather than back to the live site.
If styling looks broken, the usual explanation is a stylesheet that was excluded by a toggle or blocked by the origin. Re-run with the stylesheet and font toggles enabled and compare the report.
Frequently asked questions
Tools mentioned
- Website Cloner — Clone a public website and download HTML, CSS, JavaScript, images and fonts as a ZIP.
- Sitemap URL Extractor — Pull every URL out of a site's XML sitemap, including sitemap index files.
- HTTP Status Checker — Read the status code, headers and redirect chain returned by any URL.
Keep reading
Related tools and guides
Everything referenced in this article, plus the hubs and guides that go with it.