Thread:Brandon Rhea/@comment-14250-20121227172817/@comment--20121227174526

Hi,

Unfortunately, in so far as I'm aware, there is no mass download tool of images either built into MediaWiki or as an additional feature built by Wikia.

Mass image download has never really been built for a variety of reasons. First there is the simple size element. If a user tried to download all images on a wiki, that would take up a lot of server time and memory, trying to both grab and then zip up 2-5 GBs of data. Text by comparison is very small, only a few MBs at max. Then there is the licensing requirement. While text on Wikia wikis is licensed under one clear license that does allow for free redistribution (CC-BY-SA), images of course carry additional licensing requirements that complicate whether or not the website operator is legally allowed to make easy redistribution happen.

As such, MediaWiki nor Wikia really have any plans in the works to allow for mass image export. I'm sorry that this does not meet your needs as it sounds like a legitimate use of such a tool, but I hope this explanation helps.