Can I get a PHP downloaded file without it being executed?

The php downloaded file is executed on the server side so there is no way of getting the source code unfortunately. What you can try however is to manipulate the URL with the hope that the sysadmin made a mistake.

When a user visits http://www.example.com/index.php, the web server generates the HTML response by /usr/bin/php executing the index.php file from /var/www/html. Web servers are typically configured to execute .php files only, so .jpg or any other file types are served as normal. If a forgetful sysadmin made a copy of the .php file for backup purposes however, you might be able to retrieve the copy without being executed by /usr/bin/php So if the sysadmin made a copy as /var/www/html/index.php.bak, you may download its source code by visiting http://www.example.com/index.php.bak with your browser. Finding these leftover files is a cumbersome task, so you might want to have a look on automated URL fuzzing tools. Finally I recommend using curl to make these experiments, because it won't execute JavaScript or Flash on your machine.