How to download a website for local viewing via wget

GNU wget wins me over again and again due to its sheer effectiveness compared to other download managers.

Let's say we have a case where we want to download a website for local viewing.

Here's how to do it with the wget command

wget --mirror --convert-links --backup-converted --timestamping --adjust-extension --wait=5 --limit-rate=20k http://www.example.com

Let's go through that step by step:

--mirror

This makes wget turn on some background commands optimal for copying remote websites

--convert-links

Basically does exactly what it says, convert links to local links to enable offline viewing

--backup-converted

Tells wget to back up the original HTML files before the conversion

--timestamping

Do not overwrite the files already downloaded if they have not changed on the server. This is especially useful if the download is interrupted for some reason.

--adjust-extension

Save HTML/CSS documents with proper extensions. Useful for URLs such as http://example.com/category/ which are saved with appropriate HTML extensions

--limit-rate=20k

Limit the download speed to the specified rate

--wait=seconds

Wait the specified amount of time before requests. Be nice and lighten the load on the server.

So that's it.

A shorter equivalent would be:

wget -m -k -K -N -E -w  5 --limit-rate=20k http://www.example.com

For more consult the manuals, available online at http://www.gnu.org/software/wget/manual/wget.html

Happy downloading!!