QGIS Plugins: Overview and Installation

Introduction

QGIS comes with many analysis and editing features out of the box, but plugins let you extend its features or add ones that QGIS does not include by default. With plugins, you can create, edit, and analyze GIS data more efficiently.

This article gives an overview of QGIS plugins and explains how to install them.

What are QGIS plugins?

QGIS is designed around a core application with basic features, and users can add or remove the features (plugins) they need. This lets you customize QGIS to your liking and extend what it can do.

Most plugins are developed in Python, and anyone with programming knowledge can create one. You can also find a bug in an existing plugin and report it as an issue on GitHub (a development platform), or propose a concrete fix in a pull request. Whether or not you can write code, you can contribute to the QGIS community.

Core plugins and external plugins

QGIS plugins come in two types: “core plugins” and “external plugins.”

Core plugins are plugins maintained by the QGIS development team. They are installed together with QGIS. You cannot uninstall core plugins, but you can stop using one by clearing its checkbox if needed (the section “What to do when a plugin does not appear in the toolbar” in this article explains how).

External plugins are stored in the official repository (QGIS Python Plugins Repository) or in external repositories, and each is maintained by its author. For plugins registered in the official repository, the page provides key information you need to use the plugin, such as how to use it and which QGIS versions it supports.

You can install plugins easily with the Plugin Manager.

Statistics on QGIS plugins

The “QGIS Plugins dashboard” is a dashboard that provides statistics on the development and use of QGIS plugins.

On the development side, you can see new plugins and updates over the past 30 days, the number of developers over the past year, the ranking of the top 20 contributors, and more.

As of April 2025, the official repository hosts more than 2,500 plugins.

On the usage side, the dashboard publishes statistics such as download counts, popularity rankings, and usage by country. With so many plugins available, you might find useful ones by trying those with many downloads or those popular in Japan first.

In the plugin download ranking (green bars), “QuickMapServices” is at the top, with more than 8.2 million downloads as of April 2025. The other statistics also show that QGIS plugins are widely used.

With the dashboard's statistics, you can easily see the development status, maintenance status, and popularity trends of plugins.

Install and manage plugins with the Plugin Manager

The Plugin Manager is the tool for managing plugin installation, removal, and updates in one place. Open it from the menu bar by selecting Plugins → Manage and Install Plugins.

Search for and install a plugin

You can search for plugins registered in the official repository and install them from the Plugin Manager. The following steps use “Japanese Grid Mesh” as an example.

Open the Plugin Manager, then search for and install the plugin:

1. Select the All tab
2. Enter a keyword such as japanese in the search bar
3. Select Japanese Grid Mesh from the filtered plugins
4. Click Install Plugin to install it
5. Click Close to close the Plugin Manager

In the search bar, you can find a plugin by words in its name as well as in metadata such as the author, description, and tags.

Install a plugin from a ZIP file

QGIS can install plugins in ZIP format, such as a plugin you downloaded directly from the QGIS Python Plugins Repository.

Open the Plugin Manager, then install the ZIP plugin:

1. Select the Install from ZIP tab
2. Click the ... button and select the ZIP file
3. After you select the file, click Install Plugin to install it
4. Click Close to close the Plugin Manager

The ZIP plugin is now installed.

What to do when a plugin does not appear in the toolbar

Sometimes a plugin's icon does not appear in the toolbar or elsewhere even after you install the plugin. In this case, open the Installed tab of the Plugin Manager and check that the plugin's checkbox is selected. As in the figure, if the checkbox is not selected, you cannot use the plugin even though it is installed.

The core plugins mentioned earlier are also installed together with QGIS, but some of their checkboxes may be cleared. Before you use a core plugin, check on the Installed tab that it is enabled.

Settings tab

Use the Settings tab to manage how QGIS lists the available plugins. Select an option's checkbox to apply that setting.

1. Check for Updates on Startup
   This checkbox is selected by default. In the QGIS 3.40 long-term release (LTR), if an installed plugin has an update, a dialog asks every three days whether you want to use the updated version.

2. Show also Experimental Plugins

   This checkbox is cleared by default. It controls whether plugins in the early stages of development appear in the list.

3. Show also Deprecated Plugins

   This checkbox is cleared by default. It controls whether plugins that are no longer maintained and are not suitable for production use appear in the list. The official QGIS documentation recommends against enabling this setting. When you enable it, the affected plugins appear grayed out in the plugin list.

Launch an installed plugin

Check that the plugin icon was added

Most installed plugins add an icon to the toolbar (as in ❶) or add an entry to the menu bar.

A plugin built as a Processing algorithm looks like the built-in Processing tools and has standard features such as batch processing. These plugins are also added to the Processing Toolbox (as in ❷).

Depending on its features, a plugin may also add its own panel (as in ❸).

Use the installed plugin

Now try the Japanese Grid Mesh plugin you just installed.

To use a plugin, click its icon to open its window. For a plugin with several features, such as Japanese Grid Mesh, expand the drop-down arrow next to the icon and select the feature you need.

Japanese Grid Mesh is a plugin that adds standard grid squares from 125 m to 80 km to QGIS as vector layers for a specified area.

Click the Run button to add standard grid squares to QGIS according to your settings. (The plugin's detailed settings and usage are beyond the scope of this article, so they are omitted.)

The result confirms that the processing created the meshes correctly and that the mesh numbers appear properly as labels.

Conclusion

This article gave an overview of QGIS plugins and explained how to install them with the Plugin Manager. Plugins are tools that extend QGIS or add features to it, and the official repository hosts more than 2,500 of them. To get more out of QGIS, choose the plugins that suit your purpose and put them to use.

QGIS LAB publishes articles that introduce plugins, as well as articles on getting and adding data with plugins and on analysis examples. Check them out as well.