2020 Update!
Updated December 21st, 2020:
There’s now a much easier way to steal, copy or clone anybody’s WordPress theme. It’s sneaky, it’s accurate and it’s search-engine optimized! Check it out…
Here’s how it works:
1. Go to this “theme stealing” website here
Yep just click that link. I’ll wait.
2. Enter the link to any page on the web
Copy and paste in the link to whatever website you want to copy the theme from. (And it doesn’t even need to be a WordPress theme. I tested it on a phpBB forum and it worked very well!)
3. Choose which part of the page should be replaced with WordPress
You just hover your mouse over the part of the website where you want your blog posts and sidebar to show up and you’re almost done.
4. Choose what kind of sidebar you want
In this step, you just choose if the theme should have a left sidebar, a right sidebar or no sidebar. Pick the option you like and continue.
5. Remove the blocks you don’t want in your theme
Click your mouse on the parts of the website that you don’t want in your theme. This is super easy. Just hover and click. Hover and click.
(You might be able to do this on mobile but I recommend using a computer.)
6. Click “Create Theme”
At this point, the website will actually create a WordPress theme for you from the HTML it “stole” from the link you gave it. Clever.
7. Preview the result
Click “Preview Theme” and preview the result. You’ll see the generated WordPress theme with some posts and a sidebar, with widgets, etc.
Make sure you’re happy. If you’re not, then click the small link at the top of the page to “Try a different page”. Rinse and repeat until you like the result.
8. Download your new (stolen) theme!
Once you’re happy with the theme, click “Download Theme” in the top right of the page. You’ll be downloading your new theme in seconds. (I’m not kidding!)
You literally just click download, pick the package you like, and then download the theme for pretty cheap.
They have 3 packages: Standard, Professional & Reseller.
Check it out:
There you have it! If you can’t afford a freelancer to steal or clone a WP theme for you, try this service.
(I’ll earn a commission if you buy after clicking the links on this page. Don’t worry! You still pay the same price, whether you click my affiliate links or not.)
🔥 Hot tip #1:
You don’t have to buy the package with lots of revisions. You can just keep going back to the home page and running the software over and over again until your new theme looks “just right” BEFORE you pay.
If you DO have some money to spend, then get the “Professional” package so that they’ll do CSS tweaks for you.
Trust me, unless you’re a CSS pro, you don’t wanna be doing this stuff yourself.
🔥 Hot tip #2:
When you’re copying a site, pick a simple page like a blog post or “about us” page. Those will be the easiest to copy.
🔥 Hot tip #3:
This does not work on pages made with Javascript. It won’t work on Twitter, Facebook or Discourse (forum software) for example. But it’ll work just fine on most WordPress sites, Drupal sites, Joomla sites, phpBB forums, etc.
🔥 Hot tip #4: (for agencies & freelancers)
You can use this service as a way to create “starter themes” that you can then customize in much less time and for much less money. Great for agencies!
Ok, that’s all for this 2020 update. I did this because I’ve had a lot of people contacting me to steal, copy & clone WordPress themes for them and I just don’t have the time. (Plus I’m expensive.) So if you’re looking to steal a theme for cheap, try out this tool now. Good luck!
And now back to our regular programming…
Original post from some time in 2015:
Have you ever seen something cool on a website and wondered, “How did they do that?”
Well here’s a really quick & easy way to “steal” from your competition’s website.
- View the source of a page on their site.
- Search through the source (Ctrl-F or Cmd-F) for “wp-”.
- Look through all the results for things like this:
- http://example.com/wp-content/themes/<theme-name>
- http://example.com/wp-content/plugins/<plugin-name>
The stuff in angled brackets is what you’re looking for. So if you find one that says “wp-content/themes/magazine” then you know that “magazine” is the theme they’re using. And if you find one that says “wp-content/plugins/gravityforms” then you know that “gravityforms” is the name of the plugin.
To download that specific theme or plugin, just Google, “Wordpress plugin-name” or “WordPress theme-name”. In most cases, you’ll find where you can download or buy that theme or plugin.
Now that you know how to do this, even the most complicated and awesome websites on the web become easy to copy. As long as they’re using WordPress, chances are that you’ll be able to find out how they set up their website and you can copy their setup.