Download Chrome extension from other browser (for offline installation)
This is a little trick I found nowhere on the web so I thought I’d share.
Suppose you need to install an extension for Chrome, but for some reason you can’t access internet from Chrome itself… Easy, you just need to get the CRX file that contains the extension bundle, right? The trouble is, you can’t easily get this file if you’re browsing the extension gallery with anything other than Chrome.
Here’s how I did it:
- Find the ID of the extension you’re interested in. When on the details page of the extension, it will be something like “bfbmjmiodbnnpllbbbfblcplfjjepjdn” after “https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/” in the page URL
- Paste this URL into your browser: “https://clients2.google.com/service/update2/crx?response=redirect&x=id%3D____%26uc” replacing ____ with the extension ID.
- You’ll be prompted to save a CRX file. Drag this file to a Chrome window and proceed with installation
Done!
20 Responses so far
rat
July 11th, 2011
17:53
Great,thank you very much!
Tarun
August 29th, 2011
21:35
Thank You!
Pancho
September 2nd, 2011
16:03
Very useful tip – Thanks!
For privacy issues I have blocked all Google Analytics at the DNS level – and because of that – if I then try to install any extension from the Chrome Store – it doesn’t allow it.
So, download it through Firefox using the Downthemall! and FlashGot extensions seems to be the solution.
alx
September 24th, 2011
06:52
nice tip…
thanks
Chrome/Iron-Erweiterungen speichern « use it free
December 3rd, 2011
14:45
[...] „Per Hand“ in der Browser-Adresszeile. (Falls das mit Chrome nicht klappt, einfach mit anderem Browser [...]
antivirtel
March 11th, 2012
18:25
Not works for me, unfortunately. :S
Rombus
March 19th, 2012
14:26
It’s not working for me neither. I get a permission error
Olivier Gérardin
March 20th, 2012
10:43
System might have changed since I wrote this, I haven’t tried recently.
LuckyFM
March 26th, 2012
18:05
it’s worked nicely
thanks anyway
Andrew
April 23rd, 2012
14:07
This method starts to work, clearly sees the extension ok, but then gives the error invalid value for ‘perimissions[5]‘
Anton
June 27th, 2012
22:33
Works perfectly. Thanks!
Rodrigo Graça
July 19th, 2012
09:18
I needed to use firefox because with chrome it was installing on the current browser……
Thanks! Keep the good work!
Bill Blast
August 12th, 2012
05:45
If it isn’t working for you and you get an error when you try, you might be doing what I did at first.. when I pasted the extention id to the “____”, I accidently put the “3D” twice.
So instead of “id%3D____%26uc” it was “id%3D3D____%26uc”.
claudio
October 30th, 2012
11:15
Great!! Thanks mate
PixelWizard
November 10th, 2012
19:07
Excellent! Thanks.
Prasenjit Das
November 17th, 2012
12:48
100% working……….thanks a lot
fregs
November 22nd, 2012
10:56
Thanks, that was useful now!!
Mike
November 28th, 2012
14:57
Hi fregs.
I opened the Chrome offline, dragged the crx file from My Documents into the Chrome window and got a message:
“App, Extensions and user scripts cannot be added from this website”
How did you do it? Maybe I don’t do it properly ???
Olivier Gérardin
December 3rd, 2012
23:33
If you have the CRX file it should be ok. What is the extension you are trying to install ?
lspcity
December 4th, 2012
00:32
You can also use http://chrome-extension-downloader.com to download a chrome extension easily.
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