How to detect WordPress Themes and Plugins

Dont have Elementor yet, get it here!

I’m proud to say that I’m a website stalker, I love looking at websites especially diy websites and working out how they are built, its how I learn and keep myself inspired this article shows how to detect WordPress Themes and Plugins.

If you’re like me and have visited a website and loved the way it looked, or seen a feature and was curious as to what plugin they used to achieve it or even wondered if they are also building it on WordPress.

Well, today is your lucky day, I’m going to show you how I do it and how easy for you to as well, don’t worry you don’t have to be able to read and understand the code.

Reading Code:

One of the easiest ways to tell if a site is using WordPress If you’re on a desktop computer is to check the source code. You can even see what theme and plugins the site is using.

Step One

Visit the website you want to check, in this case, I’m checking WP Basics 101
Anywhere on the website – Right Click > View Source

Step Two

To identify if the site is using WordPress, In the source code you want to look for words like – WordPress, WP Content, WP-Includes, WP-json, Which means the website is using WordPress.

To identify what theme the website is using you want to look for /wp-content/themes/themename, in this example, the WP Basics 101 site is using the Astra theme so the code will be wp-content/themes/Astra.

To identify what plugins the website you want to look for /wp-content/plugins/pluginname, in this example the WP Basics 101 site is using WooCommerce so the code will be wp-content/plugins/woocommerce.

Tip: use Cmd + F on a mac or ctrl + f on windows to bring up a search tab and write the word you are looking for. E.g WordPress, Themes, Plugins

Using websites

To find out what plugin, theme or if it’s on WordPress, the easiest way especially if you’re on a mobile is to use websites to do the work for you, below is a list of websites I use to discover different things about the site in question.

WP Theme Detector

WP Theme Detector is a free tool that enables you to find out about the WordPress theme and plugins being used by a particular site. Its really easy to use, all you have to do is enter the url and press enter and it will do its thing. While there are plenty of others out there, in my opinion its the best one on the market.

Below is a screenshot of a scan I did of a WP Basics 101, it shows what theme and plugins the website is using, the theme detector does not show if the sites using security and backup plugins for security reasons, but you can look at the code if need be.

Other websites you can try:

Chrome extensions you can try:

Was this article helpful?

YesNo

These people love what I Do!

Thanks for all your amazing advice today. I shall research what you’ve told me about and start planning my website and then build yeehaa! You’re a bloody champ Mick, I think you’ve saved me a LOT of time and confusion by giving me a call :)

Mick is super helpful!... giving me loads of great ideas/fixes/best practice to go forward with my websites!... can't thank him enough, cheers Mick!

Mick, thank you so much for your mentor-movies, I absolutely love them, they are brilliantly great and wonderful! You rock! Cheers, Marion

Love it when you need something done and its done with no stress attached. A big thank you!

If i could rate Mick 10 stars I would. What was meant to be just a 5 minute task turned into a 60 minute task due to unforeseen circumstances and Mick provided a solution that I definitely would not have been able to do myself. Absolute legend, thanks Mick.

Mick The WP Mentor

Hi, I’m Mick, I’ve been building websites for almost 20 years, nowadays my primary focus is WordPress, as it’s highly flexible and contains fewer restrictions than page builders. I love helping others with WordPress!