How can I install Visual Studio Code extensions offline?

Question

UPDATE 2017-12-13

You can now download the extension directly from the marketplace.

As of Visual Studio Code 1.7.1 dragging or opening the extension does not work any more. In order to install it manually you need to:

• open the extensions sidebar
• click on the ellipsis in the right upper corner
• choose Install from VSIX

---

Old Method

According to the documentation it is possible to download an extension directly:

An extension's direct download URL is in the form:

https://${publisher}.gallery.vsassets.io/_apis/public/gallery/publisher/${publisher}/extension/${extension name}/${version}/assetbyname/Microsoft.VisualStudio.Services.VSIXPackage

This means that in order to download the extension you need to know

• the publisher name
• the version
• the extension name

You can find all this information in the URL.

Example

Here's an example for downloading an installing the C# v1.3.0 extension:

Publisher, Extension and Version

You can find the publisher and the extension names on the extension's homepage inside its URL:

https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=ms-vscode.csharp

Here the publisher is ms-vscode and the extension name is csharp.

The version can be found on the right side in the More Info area.

To download it you need to create a link from the template above:

https://ms-vscode.gallery.vsassets.io/_apis/public/gallery/publisher/ms-vscode/extension/csharp/1.3.0/assetbyname/Microsoft.VisualStudio.Services.VSIXPackage

All packages will have the same name Microsoft.VisualStudio.Services.VSIXPackage, so you'll need to rename it after downloading if you want to know what package it was later.

Installation

In order to install the extension

• Rename the file and give it the *.vsix extension
• Open Visual Studio Code, go to menu File → Open File... or Ctrl + O and select the .vsix file
• If everything went fine, you should see this message at the top of the window:

Extension was successfully installed. Restart to enable it.

adding on to t3chb0t's answer, not sure why the option to download is not visible, so created a patch for those who use GreaseMonkey/ TamperMonkey: you can find the gist code here

Or you can just paste the below lines in your browser console, and the link would magically appear:

let version = document.querySelector('.ux-table-metadata > tbody:nth-child(1) > tr:nth-child(1) > td:nth-child(2) > div:nth-child(1)').innerText
    , itemDetails = window.location.search.replace('?', '').split('&').filter(str => !str.indexOf('itemName')).map(str => str.split('=')[1])[0]
    , [author, extension] = itemDetails.split('.')
    , lAuthor = author.toLowerCase()
    , href = `https://${lAuthor}.gallery.vsassets.io:443/_apis/public/gallery/publisher/${author}/extension/${extension}/${version}/assetbyname/Microsoft.VisualStudio.Services.VSIXPackage`
    , element = document.createElement('a');


element.href = href;
element.className = 'vscode-moreinformation dark';
element.innerHTML = 'download .vsix file';
element.download  = `${extension}.${version}.vsix`;
document.querySelector('.vscode-install-info-container').appendChild(element);

All these suggestions are great, but kind of painful to follow because executing the code to construct the URL or constructing that crazy URL by hand is kind of annoying...

So, I threw together a quick web app to make things easier. Just paste the URL of the extension you want and out comes out the download of your extension already properly named: publisher-extension-version.vsix.

Hope someone finds it helpful: http://vscode-offline.herokuapp.com/

As of today the download URL for the latest version of the extension is embedded verbatim in the source of the page on Marketplace, e.g. source at URL:

https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=lukasz-wronski.ftp-sync

contains string:

https://lukasz-wronski.gallerycdn.vsassets.io/extensions/lukasz-wronski/ftp-sync/0.3.3/1492669004156/Microsoft.VisualStudio.Services.VSIXPackage

I use following Python regexp to extract dl URL:

urlre = re.search(r'source.+(http.+Microsoft\.VisualStudio\.Services\.VSIXPackage)', content)
if urlre:
    return urlre.group(1)

I wanted to throw a PowerShell download option on the pile in case anyone else comes across this. I have several offline scenarios and I run this in a loop to download and update all of the extensions I use offline.

$page = Invoke-WebRequest -Uri 'https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=ms-vscode.PowerShell'

$details = ( $page.Scripts | ? {$_.class -eq 'vss-extension'}).innerHTML | Convertfrom-Json

$extensionName = $details.extensionName 
$publisher     = $details.publisher.publisherName
$version       = $details.versions.version

Invoke-WebRequest -uri "$($details.versions.fallbackAssetUri)/Microsoft.VisualStudio.Services.VSIXPackage" `
                  -OutFile "C:\Scripts\extensions\$publisher.$extensionName.$version.VSIX"