get

Syntax

get [switches] <remote-file>... [<local-target>]

Copies remote files and directories to the local computer. Directories are copied with everything they contain.

With a single argument, the file lands in the local working directory (see lcd). With more, the last argument is the target:

• end it with / to name a directory: /home/alice/backup/;
• otherwise its last part is the new file name, or an operation mask such as *.bak.

Use ./ as the target to download several files into the local working directory. The source names may use masks in their last part. With /stdout, a target of - writes the file to standard output.

Also available as recv, mget.

Switches

Switch	What it does
-delete	Remove each remote file once it has been downloaded, which turns the copy into a move.
-resume	Continue an interrupted download where it stopped (SFTP and FTP).
-append	Add the downloaded data to the end of an existing local file (SFTP).
-preservetime[=all]	Give local files the modification time of the remote ones. With =all, directories keep theirs too.
-nopreservetime	Let downloaded files get the current time.
-speed=<KB/s>	Cap the download rate in kilobytes per second.
-transfer=<mode>	Use binary, ascii (convert line endings) or automatic mode.
-filemask=<mask>	Select which files and subdirectories to download with an include and exclude mask.
-resumesupport=<on/off/KB>	Download to a temporary file first, always (on), never (off), or for files larger than the number of KB given.
-neweronly	Skip files whose local copy is the same age or newer.
-latest	Download only the most recently modified of the matching files.

Affected by

confirm, failonnomatch, reconnecttime (see option).

Examples

Download one file into a local directory.

get /var/www/html/index.html /home/alice/backup/

Move the day’s logs, renaming them on the way.

get -delete /var/log/app/*.log /home/alice/logs/*.old

Fetch only the newest dump.

get -latest /srv/backups/*.sql.gz ./