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Download Wikipedia on your PC, Mac and Android phone

Merijn de Boer

Merijn de Boer

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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 download the entire Wikipedia database to your computer so that you’ve got reading 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!

Download Wikipedia on your PC, Mac and Android phone

1. Download the (free) software: Kiwix

For this article, we used the free software Kiwix, available for Windows, Mac and Android, but there are other programs, like Xowa, that will do the same thing. Kiwix is a good option because it lets you view both articles and pictures on Wikipedia when you’re offline.

Download Kiwix for Windows

Download Kiwix for Mac

Download Kiwix for Android

Kiwix Wikipedia

2. Install Kiwix

After you’ve downloaded Kiwix, you have to unpack it (in the case of the Windows version) and go to the “Install” folder. Click on ‘kiwix-install’.

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.

3. Download the Wikipedia Files​

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 and click Browse Library. 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 downloading the file in ZIM file format (like Wikipedia).

Please note that after the content has finished downloading, you won’t immediately see the database in the Kiwix library: you will have to search manually through the Windows Start menu.

Open the Programs and Files and search for ZIM. In the search results, the file ‘wikipedia_en_all_01_2011_beta1’ or something similar should appear. You’ll have to double click on the file, which will open using Kiwix. On Mac, use the Spotlight search feature, which you can access using the Cmd + Spacebar key combination.

Kiwix for Android

The version for Android works a little differently: from the app, follow a link to Kiwix.org (or access it from your browser) and do 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 settings.

And that’s it! You’ll have access to the entire Wikipedia database offline!

Will you download Wikipedia?

Merijn de Boer

Merijn de Boer

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