How do I copy a folder from remote to local using scp?

How do I copy a folder from remote to local host using scp?

I use ssh to log in to my server.
Then, I would like to copy the remote folder foo to local /home/user/Desktop.

How do I achieve this?

12 Answers

scp -r :/path/to/foo /home/user/Desktop/ 

By not including the trailing '/' at the end of foo, you will copy the directory itself (including contents), rather than only the contents of the directory.

From man scp (See online manual)

-r Recursively copy entire directories

To use full power of scp you need to go through next steps:

1. Public key authorisation
2. Create ssh aliases

Then, for example if you have this ~/.ssh/config:

Host test User testuser HostName test-site.com Port 22022 Host prod User produser HostName production-site.com Port 22022 

you'll save yourself from password entry and simplify scp syntax like this:

scp -r prod:/path/foo /home/user/Desktop # copy to local scp -r prod:/path/foo test:/tmp # copy from remote prod to remote test 

More over, you will be able to use remote path-completion:

scp test:/var/log/ # press tab twice Display all 151 possibilities? (y or n) 

Update:

For enabling remote bash-completion you need to have bash-shell on both <source> and <target> hosts, and properly working bash-completion. For more information see related questions:

How to enable autocompletion for remote paths when using scp?
SCP filename tab completion

To copy all from Local Location to Remote Location (Upload)

scp -r /path/from/local username@hostname:/path/to/remote 

To copy all from Remote Location to Local Location (Download)

scp -r username@hostname:/path/from/remote /path/to/local 

Custom Port where xxxx is custom port number

 scp -r -P xxxx username@hostname:/path/from/remote /path/to/local 

Copy on current directory from Remote to Local

scp -r username@hostname:/path/from/remote . 

Help:

1. -r Recursively copy all directories and files
2. Always use full location from /, Get full location/path by pwd
3. scp will replace all existing files
4. hostname will be hostname or IP address
5. if custom port is needed (besides port 22) use -P PortNumber
6. . (dot) - it means current working directory, So download/copy from server and paste here only.

Note: Sometimes the custom port will not work due to the port not being allowed in the firewall, so make sure that custom port is allowed in the firewall for incoming and outgoing connection

What I always use is:

scp -r username@IP:/path/to/server/source/folder/ . 

. (dot) : it means current folder. so copy from server and paste here only.

IP : can be an IP address like 125.55.41.311 or it can be host like ns1.mysite.com.

Better to first compress catalog on remote server:

tar czfP backup.tar.gz /path/to/catalog 

Secondly, download from remote:

scp :/path/to/backup.tar.gz . 

At the end, extract the files:

tar -xzvf backup.tar.gz 

Typical scenario,

scp -r -P port username@ip:/path-to-folder . 

explained with an sample,

scp -r -P 27000 abc@10.70.12.12:/tmp/hotel_dump .

where,

port = 27000 username = "abc" , remote server username path-to-folder = tmp/hotel_dump . = current local directory 

And if you have one hell of a files to download from the remote location and if you don't much care about security, try changing the scp default encryption (Triple-DES) to something like 'blowfish'.

This will reduce file copying time drastically.

scp -c blowfish -r :/path/to/foo /home/user/Desktop/ 

Go to Files on your unity toolbar

Press Ctrl + l and write here_goes_your_user_name@192.168.10.123

The 192.168.1.103 is the host that you want to connect.

The here one example

In case you run into "Too many authentication failures", specify the exact SSH key you have added to your severs ssh server:

scp -r -i /path/to/local/key :/path/to/folder /your/local/target/dir 

The question was how to copy a folder from remote to local with scp command.

$ scp -r userRemote@remoteIp:/path/remoteDir /path/localDir

But here is the better way for do it with sftp - SSH File Transfer Protocol (also Secure File Transfer Protocol, or SFTP) is a network protocol that provides file access, file transfer, and file management over any reliable data stream.(wikipedia).

$ sftp user_remote@remote_ip

sftp> cd /path/to/remoteDir

sftp> get -r remoteDir

Fetching /path/to/remoteDir to localDir 100% 398 0.4KB/s 00:00

For help about sftp command just type help or ?.

I don't know why but I was had to use local folder before source server directive . to make it work

scp -r . root@888.888.888.888:/usr/share/nginx/www/ 

For Windows OS, we used this command.

pscp -r -P 22 hostname@IP:/path/to/Downloads ./