How to recursively download a folder via FTP on Linux

Question

I'm trying to ftp a folder using the command line ftp client, but so far I've only been able to use 'get' to get individual files.

Answer 1

You could rely on wget which usually handles ftp get properly (at least in my own experience). For example:

wget -r ftp://user:[email protected]/

You can also use -m which is suitable for mirroring. It is currently equivalent to -r -N -l inf.

If you've some special characters in the credential details, you can specify the --user and --password arguments to get it to work. Example with custom login with specific characters:

wget -r --user="user@login" --password="Pa$$wo|^D" ftp://server.com/

EDIT As pointed out by @asmaier, watch out that even if -r is for recursion, it has a default max level of 5:

       -r
       --recursive
           Turn on recursive retrieving.

       -l depth
       --level=depth
           Specify recursion maximum depth level depth.  The default maximum depth is 5.

If you don't want to miss out subdirs, better use the mirroring option, -m:

       -m
       --mirror
           Turn on options suitable for mirroring.  This option turns on recursion and time-stamping, sets infinite
           recursion depth and keeps FTP directory listings.  It is currently equivalent to -r -N -l inf
           --no-remove-listing.