How to download directory via FTP with the Wget command

How to download directory via FTP with the Wget command

Last updated August 1, 2023

How to download directory via FTP with the Wget command -Download and uploading files are what we are often done when we set the server, especially if we want to migrate server both from Cloud VPS to Cloud VPS or from Shared Hosting to Cloud VPS.

We ourselves have a unique experience when moving one of our WordPress customer websites where our old customer provider does not want to provide SSH access and only give access to very limited panels. I don’t know what the reason is, but as a provider, this should not be done because data and servers are fully owned by the customer.

Back to the very limited access problem, inevitably the team is looking for the best solution to move our WordPress Customer website and the worst option is to download the file to a local computer and then re-upload which of course will take a long time because the data reaches more than 30GB.

After doing some research, we finally found the best and fastest way to download the file between servers by using FTP combined with the Wget command.

How to download directory via FTP with the Wget command

The first thing we need to do is make FTP access and each panel control has a different menu. Be sure to create an FTP with access to the directory that we will download.

After the FTP access is successfully created, the next step is to download all the directory and the file on the VPS cloud by running the command

wget -m ftp://userftp:passwordftp@hostftp/dirfilewebsite

For example

wget -m ftp://cakpuser:[email protected]/idsysadmin.com

If successful then we will see the following responses:

We use flag -m and not -r because:

• -R is for the real Flag recursive this is good but will be limited to 5 directorys in meaning that if the directory we have a level of more than 5 Dir, it will not be downloaded
• -M is for mirroring which means that all files in the FTP directory will be mirrored to the downloaded VPS so as to make sure there are no files left behind.

Furthermore, we are just waiting until finished. Keep in mind that downloading like this takes a long time because the system downloads it one by one so it is strongly recommended to run it in screen mode.

We have discussed how to use screen in the discussion on how to use Linux screen. Please check it to learn what screen is and how to use it.

Hope it is useful!