{"id":57214,"date":"2013-12-14T15:00:42","date_gmt":"2013-12-14T13:00:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/onsoftware.en.softonic.com\/?p=57214"},"modified":"2025-07-02T00:58:25","modified_gmt":"2025-07-02T07:58:25","slug":"download-wikipedia-on-your-pc-mac-and-android-phone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/download-wikipedia-on-your-pc-mac-and-android-phone\/","title":{"rendered":"Download Wikipedia on your PC, Mac and Android phone"},"content":{"rendered":"

As the largest online collection of articles and information, Wikipedia has an answer to every question and is particularly useful when you want to look something up quickly.<\/p>\n

Now there’s an app that lets you\u00a0download the entire Wikipedia database to your computer so that you’ve got\u00a0reading material available, even when you don’t have internet access. What’s the easiest way to get articles to your PC, Mac or Android Phone? Read on and find out!<\/p>\n

1. Download the (free) software: Kiwix<\/strong><\/h3>\n

For this\u00a0article, we\u00a0used the free software <\/span>Kiwix<\/strong>, available for Windows, Mac and Android, but there are other programs, like Xowa<\/a>, that will do the same thing. Kiwix is a good option because it lets you\u00a0view\u00a0both articles and pictures on Wikipedia when you’re\u00a0offline.<\/span><\/p>\n

Download Kiwix for Windows<\/a><\/p>\n

Download Kiwix for\u00a0Mac<\/a><\/p>\n

Download Kiwix for Android<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Kiwix<\/p>\n

2. Install\u00a0Kiwix<\/strong><\/h3>\n

After you’ve downloaded\u00a0Kiwix, you have to unpack it (in the case of the Windows version) and go to the “Install” folder. Click on ‘kiwix-install’<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

In the Mac version, all you have to do is drag it to your applications to install. Of course, the installation proceeds automatically from Google Play.<\/span>\"\"<\/p>\n

3. Download the Wikipedia Files\u200b<\/strong><\/h3>\n

The Kiwix homepage looks a bit like a browser, and from its clean interface, you can download a local version of the whole of Wikipedia. Go to File<\/strong> and click Browse Library<\/strong>. A list of available databases appears with a download button on the right. Search for ‘Wikipedia in English” and tap the download button. Kiwix will start\u00a0downloading the file in\u00a0ZIM\u00a0file format (like Wikipedia).<\/p>\n

Please note that after the content has finished\u00a0downloading,\u00a0you won’t immediately see the database in the Kiwix library:\u00a0you will have to search manually through the Windows Start menu.<\/p>\n

Open the Programs and Files and search for\u00a0ZIM.\u00a0In the search results, the file ‘wikipedia_en_all_01_2011_beta1’<\/strong> or something similar should\u00a0appear.\u00a0You’ll have to double click on the file, which will open using Kiwix.\u00a0On Mac, use the Spotlight search feature, which you can access using the Cmd + Spacebar key combination.<\/p>\n

\"Kiwix<\/p>\n

The version for Android works a little differently: from the app, follow a link to Kiwix.org (or access it\u00a0from your browser) and\u00a0do a database search (for a file that ends in ZIM). Once you’ve downloaded this file, open Kiwix and tap “open File” from the Kiwix\u00a0settings.<\/p>\n

And that’s it! You’ll have access to the entire Wikipedia database offline!<\/p>\n

Will you download Wikipedia?<\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As the largest online collection of articles and information, Wikipedia has an answer to every question and is particularly useful when you want to look something up quickly. Now there’s an app that lets you\u00a0download the entire Wikipedia database to your computer so that you’ve got\u00a0reading material available, even when you don’t have internet access. … Continue reading “Download Wikipedia on your PC, Mac and Android phone”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2024,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","wpcf-pageviews":0},"categories":[],"tags":[],"usertag":[],"vertical":[],"content-category":[],"class_list":["post-57214","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57214","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2024"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57214"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57214\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":331632,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57214\/revisions\/331632"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57214"},{"taxonomy":"usertag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/usertag?post=57214"},{"taxonomy":"vertical","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/vertical?post=57214"},{"taxonomy":"content-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/content-category?post=57214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}