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I want to download a folder which contains hundreds of files that are hosted on an ftp server to my Windows 7 desktop. I've never used ftp before, so I am not sure where to start.

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Sorry, Windows 2007? What is that? – Zoredache Jul 19 '11 at 17:38
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Navigate to FTP site, Page menu->View in Explorer, Copy files to desktop. Or get a real client like Filezilla. – Chris S Jul 19 '11 at 17:42

migrated from serverfault.com Jul 19 '11 at 18:36

3 Answers

up vote 5 down vote accepted

FTP protocol doesn't support directory download. Most FTP clients (AFAIK, not including standard command line tools "ftp") allow to download directories by getting their listing recursively and downloading files one by one automatically.

There is a plenty of different clients. For instance, filezilla - free and open source.

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you can also use the mget command if you are limited to command line and there is no directory structure – Zypher Jul 19 '11 at 18:34
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  1. Open an Explorer window. Click on the Start menu, then select My Computer.

  2. Type the ftp url in the the address bar. For example:

    ftp://mirror.anl.gov/pub/ubuntu
  3. If a login is necessary, a dialog box will appear.
  4. A listing of all directories and files of the server will appear.
  5. Copy the files just as you would with a normal folder.
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woo! nice.. i never knew that. +1 – user178744 Mar 21 at 20:28
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If you archive (zip) the directory, you can get the archive and unzip it locally.

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