Here is what to do if you are unable to download a WordPress plugin.

Why can’t I download a plugin?

You may encounter plug-ins that are not updated for a long period of time, or plug-ins for which the download button does not appear when you try to download them from the official website.

The reason why these plug-ins cannot be downloaded is indicated on the plug-in screen as follows.

This plugin is not available for download because it was stopped on X date X year X month X day. Reason: Violation of guidelines.
This plugin is not available for download because it was removed from the public domain on X, X, X date. Reason: Security issue.

Violation of Guidelines

There are various rules and regulations for plug-ins published on WordPress sites. For example, “the functionality of the plugin must not differ from the readme.txt”, “the license must be clearly stated”, “do not include UI for features that only work in the paid version”, “do not transmit user data externally”, etc.

These guidelines are constantly being updated, and plugins that have not been updated for a long period of time and do not meet the new guidelines may no longer be available for download by the WordPress management company.

Reference Official WordPress Directory Guidelines
https://developer.wordpress.org/plugins/wordpress-org/detailed-plugin-guidelines/

Security Issues

When a vulnerability is discovered in a plugin and the vulnerability is not closed for a long period of time, the plugin will not be available for download by the WordPress management company.

Plugins that receive this warning may have vulnerabilities or malware embedded in them, and downloading and using them can be very dangerous because you are adding vulnerabilities to your site. For this reason, we recommend that you refrain from using them.

Is it safe to continue to download and use a plugin that is no longer available for download?

As mentioned above, it is very dangerous to download plug-ins that have security issues. If you do download a plugin, we recommend that you modify the code of the plugin directly to close the vulnerability before using it.

Plug-ins that violate the guidelines may also potentially cause security problems or leak user information, and should not be used.

For this reason, it is safest to stop using plug-ins that are not available for download from official sites and replace them with alternative plug-ins.

For more information on the vulnerabilities of plug-ins used in WordPress, please refer to the following links,
Free WordPress:Malware Scanning & Security Plug-in [Malware and Virus Detection and Removal]
You can check the vulnerability of WordPress plug-ins at Please use it if you like.

Retrieve plug-ins that are no longer available for download

Step 1: Check the version

Click the SVN repository link on the Develop tab of the plugin that is no longer available for download.

Click the “tags” folder after the SVN repository link, and the versions released by the plugin will be displayed. Note the version you want.

Step 2: Create a download link

The plug-in can be obtained from the following download link.

https://downloads.wordpress.org/plugin/"Plugins slug"."Version you want".zip

If you want version 1.1.9 of the ps-auto-sitemap plugin, the download link is as follows.

https://downloads.wordpress.org/plugin/ps-auto-sitemap.1.1.9.zip

You can download the plugin by accessing the above URL by putting it into the URL input field of your browser.

*If there is nothing in the tags folder, you can download the URL without version.

https://downloads.wordpress.org/plugin/"Plugins slug".zip

We hope you will give it a try.

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