What WordPress Theme Is That? How to Find Any Site's Theme and Plugins

You land on a site with a design you like and want to know what it is built with. If the site runs on WordPress, the theme is usually easy to identify, because WordPress loads theme files from a predictable path and every theme carries a small header with its name. Below is the manual method that works in any browser, how to spot the plugins, where the method stops working, and what to do when the site is not WordPress at all.

The fastest way: a detector

Paste the address into the CMS and WordPress theme detector. It loads the page once, confirms the CMS by several signals, picks the theme folder name out of the code, opens the theme's style.css and shows the name, author, version, theme URI and — for child themes — the parent theme. It also lists the plugin folders it can see in the page code. If you need the wider stack (analytics, CDN, JavaScript libraries, fonts), the website technology checker covers that.

The rest of this article explains how to do the same by hand, which is useful when you want to double-check a result or understand why a detector came back empty.

The manual method: view source and style.css

1. Open the page source. Press Ctrl+U on Windows and Linux or Cmd+Option+U on a Mac. In Chrome on Android, add view-source: before the address.
2. Search for the theme path. Press Ctrl+F and type wp-content/themes/. You will find lines such as https://example.com/wp-content/themes/astra/assets/css/style.min.css. The word right after themes/ — here astra — is the theme's folder name.
3. Open the theme stylesheet. Add style.css to the folder path: https://example.com/wp-content/themes/astra/style.css. WordPress requires this file in every theme, and it starts with a comment block that describes the theme.
4. Read the header. The block looks like this:

/*
Theme Name: Astra Child
Theme URI: https://example.com/
Author: Studio Name
Version: 1.0.2
Template: astra
*/

If style.css loads but contains no header, the file may have been minified or replaced by an optimisation plugin. In that case you still have the folder name, and a web search for it, together with "WordPress theme", often finds the source.

Child themes: look for the Template line

Many sites do not run a theme directly. They use a child theme: a small folder with the owner's customisations on top of a parent theme that provides the layout and features. That way, updates to the parent do not wipe out the changes. In the page source you will often see two theme folders, for example astra and astra-child.

The child's header has a Template: line naming the parent's folder. The parent is the part you can actually download or buy; the child is usually unique to that site. Popular parents include Astra, GeneratePress, Kadence, Divi and the Genesis framework, but any theme can be a parent.

Spotting plugins from asset paths

Plugins live in /wp-content/plugins/<folder>/. Search the source for wp-content/plugins/ and note each distinct folder name: elementor, woocommerce, contact-form-7, wpforms-lite and so on. The folder name is usually close to the plugin's name in the wordpress.org directory. A few more hints:

• HTML comments. SEO plugins often announce themselves, for example with a comment that the site is optimised with Yoast SEO or Rank Math, even when they load no files.
• The REST API index. On many WordPress sites, /wp-json/ returns a list of "namespaces" such as wc/v3 or contact-form-7/v1, each hinting at a plugin. Some sites disable or restrict it.
• Version parameters. Asset URLs often end with ?ver= and a number — sometimes the plugin version, sometimes the WordPress version, sometimes a cache-busting value.

You will only see plugins that output something on the page: page builders, forms, sliders, shops, chat widgets. Plugins that work purely on the server — caching, security, backups, redirects — leave no trace in the HTML. The set also varies by page: a form plugin may load only on the contact page, so check a post and a product page as well as the home page.

When the method fails

An empty result is not always an error. Common reasons:

• Custom theme. A folder like client-2025 with an agency in Author means the theme was built for this site. There is nothing to buy.
• Renamed theme. Developers sometimes change the Theme Name of a purchased theme. Theme URI, Author, the Template line and the file structure usually still give it away.
• Renamed paths. WordPress allows moving wp-content, and some security plugins rewrite asset URLs, so the familiar paths disappear.
• Caching and CDN. Optimisation plugins merge stylesheets into one file under /wp-content/cache/, and a CDN may serve assets from another domain. Look for the theme folder in image URLs or in scripts instead.
• Headless WordPress. The visible site is built with Next.js, Gatsby or another framework, and WordPress only serves content through its API. There is no WordPress theme on the front end at all.
• Not WordPress. If there is no wp-content anywhere, first check which CMS the site uses — see how to find out what CMS a site is built on.

Shopify and other platforms

Shopify stores usually include a JavaScript object called Shopify.theme in the page source. Search the source for Shopify.theme: it typically contains the theme's name as the store owner named it, which may be the original theme name (Dawn, Prestige, Impulse and so on) or a custom label like "Live theme v3". Some stores also expose a theme store ID; when it is empty, the theme may be custom or heavily modified. Treat these fields as hints rather than proof.

Hosted builders such as Wix, Squarespace and Tilda generally do not expose a template name in a reliable way. You can usually confirm the platform from its CDN domain (static.wixstatic.com, tildacdn.com), but not the exact template.

Ethics and licences

Looking at a site's public source code is normal: browsers download it anyway, and identifying a theme to buy the same one is fair. Copying is different. A custom theme belongs to its owner or developer, and reproducing its design or code can infringe their rights. Commercial themes need a licence even though WordPress theme code is generally distributed under the GPL — buying gives you updates, support and often bundled assets that are licensed separately. Avoid "nulled" copies of paid themes: they are a common source of malware and hidden links.

If the site you are checking is your own, remember that anyone can do the same. Knowing the theme is not a vulnerability by itself, but outdated theme and plugin versions are a frequent way into WordPress sites. Keeping them updated matters more than hiding their names.