How to download a file from a server using the terminal
I’ve had the need to transfer a file I had on a server.
I was connected through SSH and I didn’t want to setup the SFTP connection (and I didn’t know if the SFTP connection was allowed), so I opened another terminal window and used the command scp.
Here’s the syntax:
scp -i /.ssh/yourkey USER@SERVER:/path-to-file/on/server.txt ./
Swap USER and SERVER with your server details, and also /path-to-file/on/server.txt with the path of the file. And use your SSH key path.
This will download the file in the same folder you are in, because I specified ./. You can change it to any folder on your computer.
I wrote 17 books to help you become a better developer, download them all at $0 cost by joining my newsletter
- C Handbook
- Command Line Handbook
- CSS Handbook
- Express Handbook
- Git Cheat Sheet
- Go Handbook
- HTML Handbook
- JS Handbook
- Laravel Handbook
- Next.js Handbook
- Node.js Handbook
- PHP Handbook
- Python Handbook
- React Handbook
- SQL Handbook
- Svelte Handbook
- Swift Handbook
JOIN MY CODING BOOTCAMP, an amazing cohort course that will be a huge step up in your coding career - covering React, Next.js - next edition February 2025