Articles & Snippets

What HTTrack Does

• Downloads HTML pages
• Grabs images, CSS, and JavaScript files
• Rewrites links so the site works locally
• Mirrors the folder structure

Install HTTrack

On Ubuntu or Debian:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install httrack

On macOS using Homebrew:

brew install httrack

On Windows:

Download the installer from the official HTTrack website and run the setup file.

Basic Command Example

Here is a simple example that downloads a website and sets a custom browser user agent:

URL='https://example.com/'
httrack $URL -F "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/91.0.4472.124 Safari/537.36"

Command Breakdown

• URL='https://example.com/'
  Stores the target website in a variable.
• httrack $URL
  Starts the download process using the URL variable.
• -F "Mozilla/5.0 (...)"
  Sets the user agent string. This makes the request look like it came from a real Chrome browser on Windows.

Download to a Specific Folder

httrack https://example.com/ -O ./my-website-copy

The -O option tells HTTrack where to save the mirrored website.

Limit Download Depth

httrack https://example.com/ -r2

The -r2 option limits link depth to 2 levels. This prevents downloading the entire internet.

Things to Keep in Mind

• Always check the website terms of service before copying content.
• Do not overload servers with aggressive settings.
• Use delays if you are downloading large sites.

Summary

HTTrack lets you copy websites for offline use. Install it, run the command with a target URL, and adjust options as needed. Keep your usage responsible and legal.

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download websites offline