The quickest way to download all the wsp-packages in a SharePoint farm

Sometimes - pretty often in the good old on-premises world, actually - you'll need to have a copy of all the packages that are deployed to a certain farm.

So - how to download all of the deployed farm solutions (essentially, cabinet files renamed to .wsp) from a farm? Luckily, it's quite easy!

Solution

To download all deployed farm solutions (wsp-packages) from a SharePoint farm is pretty simple using PowerShell. No need to download individual packages through cumbersome interfaces! You don't even have to open the Central Administration! :) 

The following script, when run in PowerShell, will download all of the deployed farm solutions to the specified $FolderPath. You'll need to run the Powershell window as a farm admin, though!

$FolderPath = "c:\backup\wsp"  
foreach ($solution in Get-SPSolution)  
{  
   $id = $Solution.SolutionID  
   $title = $Solution.Name  
   $filename = $Solution.SolutionFile.Name  
   $solution.SolutionFile.SaveAs("$FolderPath\$filename")  
}

Originally got this one from the cool guys at C-Sharp Corner.