How to Install Older version of Chrome Extensions

How to Install Older version of Chrome Extensions.md

Tutorial: https://quickfever.com/install-older-version-of-chrome-extension

Extension Fonts :

• https://crx.dam.io/
• https://www.crx4chrome.com/

1. Disabling concrete extension update. You can do this by editing the extensions manifest json-file

on Windows: C:\Users<USERNAME>\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\Extensions<EXTENSION-ID><VERSION>\manifest.json (find out the extensions ID by enabling developer mode in the extension settings page) on Ubuntu for Chromium: ${HOME}/.config/chromium/Default/Preferences

In this file set "update_url" property to something invalid like "https://localhost" for example. For now according to given url updating of that extension is simply impossible.

Tutorial transcription.txt

How to Install Older version of Chrome Extensions
DEVENDRAAPRIL 1, 2017  10
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Like everything else, chrome extensions get updated to their newer version. Most of the time developers fix something or add new features to extensions. But sometimes newer version couldn’t do justice, and you can’t help but use the newer version, there may be a couple of reasons for you to go back for the older version of a Chrome extension.

But here is the problem, you can’t downgrade a Chrome extension to its older version from Chrome web store. As the store only contains the latest version of the extensions.

How to Downgrade Chrome Extension
So how you’ll find the older version of a Chrome extension and install it to your Chrome browser? This is a detailed how-to guide that is going to help you in that case. Let’s see where to find older Chrome extensions and how to install them, let’s get started.

So I’ve decided this guide into these segments to help you downgrade a chrome extension of your choice.

Step 1. Uninstall the extension (latest version)
Downgrade Chrome extension

Sounds easy, head over to Chrome Settings > Extensions and remove the extension. Or you can directly right click on the extension’s icon from the top-right area and select remove from chrome. Alternatively, type chrome://extensions/ in the address bar to open the extension manager page and click on the trash icon to remove that particular extension or app.

Step 2. Download older version of the extension
So there are a few archive websites which keep a catalog of Chrome extensions by version number. An archive site is crx.dam.io which stores chrome extension in zip file format.

Visit the site press Ctrl+f and search for the extension you’re looking for, if you find it, download the appropriate version file, which is basically will be a zip file. Save it your computer and enable “show file extensions” from folder option.

Download old version of Chrome extension

Rename .zip with .crx as it’s chrome supported file type and sites should not host .crx (installable) files on their servers. To open this file format off, you will need to get the help of an additional software like Winrar. However, you do not need to extract this file but only have to change its extension. This is required in the process of downgrading the Chrome extension to get back to an older version.

Downgrading Chrome extension

Step 3. Install it
Open Chrome, head to Extensions page and drag the .crx file inside the extensions tab. It will ask for confirmation, accept that. The chrome extension should he installed, and you can use it in the way before. Now to check the version go to extensions page to confirm you’ve successfully installed the version as you were supposed.

Install older version of Chrome extension

Fix this can only be added from the web store error: Open the extension with a 7zip and extract it then delete any “_metadata” file or folder then use the load unpacked extension.

thank you

doesnt work anymore, chrome keeps updating the extension disregarding the invalid update_url
edit: extracting the crx/zip, changing the manifest and loading the unpacked extension works, thanks

This is nice for security research, and it's great to be able to download older versions of extensions, for example here's the list of all Grammarly version updates: https://www.crx4chrome.com/history/2722/

However, if you're downloading these extensions for personal use, be extremely careful. You don't know what's in the "version" of the extension you're downloading from sites like crx4chrome.com. Sure, they provide file hashes - but unless you're monitoring the chrome web store yourself, you don't know whether those hashes are accurate for earlier versions of each extension.

Will this process maintain the settings and data of the original extension, or will it end up installing as a new (different) instance of the extension, and therefore losing all access to the settings and data stored by the original instance?

UPDATE: It will not. Also the instructions need updating.

1. You will be downloading a .crx from https://www.crx4chrome.com/ , not a .zip file. Also, the other site is no longer active.

2. However, you need a ZIP version of the file. It's not longer just a matter of changing the extension to .zip. It needs converting to .zip. Can do that here: https://www.ezyzip.com/convert-crx-to-zip.html

3. Once you have the zip file, unpack it on your computer.

4. Before deleting the Chrome Store version of the extension, make sure you've exported any data and settings, if it allows for such and if that's necessary. Some extensions (like Tab managers) store data locally. Export what you can, if needed.

5. Load it as an unpacked extension. Don't just drag the .crx file to Brave/Chrome. This will install the extension in the regular way, and Chrome/Brave will update it as per normal. You must install it as an Unpacked Extension. Then Chrome/Brave can't update it.