Linux ssh copy file to local

4 Ways to Transfer Files Between Remote and Local Systems Over SSH

From legacy scp to modern rsync. From the unconventional sshfs to the GUI convenience of FileZilla. Learn different ways for copying files over SSH.

Sooner or later, you’ll find yourself in a situation where you have to upload the file to the remote server over SSH or copy a file from it.

There are various ways you can transfer files over SSH. I am going to discuss the following methods here:

1. scp: Legacy command which is being deprecated
2. rsync: Popular command for file synchronization
3. sshfs: Mounting remote directory over SSH
4. sftp clients: GUI tool for accessing file over SFTP

For a successful file transfer over SSH, you need to

• have SSH access between the two machines
• know the username and password on the remote machine
• know the IP address or hostname (on the same subnet) of the remote machine

With that aside, let’s see the methods for copying files between remote systems via SSH.

Method 1: Use scp command to copy files over SSH

I have read that scp is going to be deprecated. Still, it is my favorite tool for transferring files between systems over SSH. Why? Because its syntax is similar to the cp command.

Let’s see how to use the scp command.

Copy files from the remote machine to your local machine

Here’s the scenario. You want to copy files from the remote Linux system to the currently logged in system.

Here’s a generic syntax that copies the file from the home directory of the user on the remote system to the current directory of your locally logged in system.

scp [email protected]_address:/home/username/filename .

Do you see the similarity with the cp command? It’s almost the same except that you have to specify username and ip address with colon (:).

Now, let me show you a real-world example of this command.

In the example above, I copied the file remote.txt from the /home/abhishek/my_file directory on the remote system to the current directory of the local machine.

This should give you a hint that you should know the exact location of the file on the remote system. The tab completion does not work on remote systems.

Copy files from your local machine to the remote machine

The scenario is slightly changed here. In this one, you are sending a local file to the remote system over SSH using scp.

This is a generic syntax which will copy the filename to the home directory of username on the remote system.

In the above example, I copied local.txt file from the current directory to the home directory of the user abhishek on the remote system.

Then I logged into the remote system to show that the file has actually been copied.

You can copy directories too

Remember I told you I like scp because of its similarity with the cp command?

Like cp command, you can also use scp to copy directory over SSH. The syntax is similar to the cp command too. You just have to use the -r option.

scp -r source_dir [email protected]_address:/home/username/target_dir

You can do a lot more with it. Read some more examples of scp command in this tutorial:

Method 2: Use rsync to copy files and directories over SSH

Since scp is being deprecated, rsync is the next best tool for copying files between remote system over SSH. Actually, it is better than scp in many terms.

The command syntax is the same as scp. Older versions of rsync had to use rsync -e ssh but that’s not the case anymore.

Copy files from the remote machine to your local machine

Let’s say you want to copy a file from the home directory of the user on the remote system to the current directory of your locally logged in system.

rsync [email protected]_address:/home/username/filename .

Let’s take the same example you saw with scp. I am copying the file remote.txt from the /home/abhishek/my_file directory on the remote system to the current directory of the local machine.

Copy files from your local machine to the remote machine

Here is a generic syntax which will copy the file to the home directory of username on the remote system.

Time to see the real world example. I am copying local.txt file from the current directory to the home directory of the user abhishek on the remote system.

How about copying directories with rsync?

It’s the same. Just use -r option with rsync to copy entire directory over SSH between remote systems.

rsync -r source_dir [email protected]_address:/home/username/target_dir

Take a look at this example. I copy the entire my_file directory from the remote system to the local system.

rsync is a versatile tool. It is essentially a tool for ‘recursively syncing’ the contents between two directories and quite popular for making automated backups.

Method 3: Using SSHFS to access files from remote system over SSH

There is also SSHFS (SSH Filesystem) that can be used to access remote files and directories. However, this is not very convenient just for copying files.

In this method, you mount the remote directory on your local system. Once mounted, you can copy files between the mounted directory and the local system.

You may need to install sshfs on your local system first using your distribution’s package manager.

On Debian and Ubuntu, you may use the following command:

Once you have sshfs installed on your system, you can use it to mount the remote directory. It would be better to create a dedicated directory for the mount point.

Now mount the desired directory on the remote machine in this fashion:

sshfs [email protected]_address:path_to_dir mount_dir

Once it is mounted, you can copy files into this directory or from this directory as if it is on your local machine itself.

Remember that you have mounted this file. Once your work is done, you should also unmount it:

Here’s an example where I mounted the my_file directory from the remote system to the remote_dir directory on the local system. I copied the remote.txt file to the local system and then unmounted the directory.

Method 4: Use a GUI-based SFTP client for transferring files between remote systems

As the last resort, you can use an FTP client for transferring files between remote and local systems.

FileZilla is one of the most popular cross-platform FTP client. You can easily install on your local system.

Once installed, go to File->Site Manager and add the remote system details like IP address, SSH port number, username and password.

Once you connect, you can see a split window view that shows the local filesystem on the left and the remote filesystem on the right.

To transfer the file, drag and drop files from left to right or right to left. A progress bar appears at the bottom.

Which method do you prefer?

Alright! I showed various command line and GUI methods that can be used for copying files over SSH.

Now it is up to you to decide which method to use here. Do comment your preferred method for transferring files over SSH.

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How to copy a file from remote server to local machine? [closed]

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In my terminal shell, I ssh’ed into a remote server, and I cd to the directory I want. Now in this directory, there is a file called table that I want to copy to my local machine /home/me/Desktop . How can I do this? I tried scp table /home/me/Desktop but it gave an error about no such file or directory. Does anyone know how to do this? Thanks

4 Answers 4

For example, your remote host is example.com and remote login name is user1:

scp user1@example.com:/path/to/file /path/to/store/file 

If you are on the server and want to copy the file(s) to your local machine, doesn’t your local machine also have to be an ssh server?

Log out of remote server. scp uses ssh below the surface. So if you give an scp command on your local machine, scp will ssh onto your server to copy the file. If you normally do ssh my-user@my-server , now do scp my-user@my-server:/my/path/to/my.remote.file /my/path/to/my.local.file

The scp operation is separate from your ssh login. You will need to issue an ssh command similar to the following one assuming jdoe is account with which you log into the remote system and that the remote system is example.com:

scp jdoe@example.com:/somedir/table /home/me/Desktop/. 

The scp command issued from the system where /home/me/Desktop resides is followed by the userid for the account on the remote server. You then add a «:» followed by the directory path and file name on the remote server, e.g., /somedir/table. Then add a space and the location to which you want to copy the file. If you want the file to have the same name on the client system, you can indicate that with a period, i.e. «.» at the end of the directory path; if you want a different name you could use /home/me/Desktop/newname, instead. If you were using a nonstandard port for SSH connections, you would need to specify that port with a «-P n» (capital P), where «n» is the port number. The standard port is 22 and if you aren’t specifying it for the SSH connection then you won’t need that.

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Copying files from server to local computer using SSH [closed]

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I am having trouble copying files from a remote server using SSH. Using PuTTY I log in to the server using SSH. Once I find the file I would like to copy over to my computer, I use the command:

scp username@host.com:/dir/of/file.txt \local\dir\ 

It looks like it was successful, but it only ends up creating a new folder labeled ‘localdir’ in the remote directory /dir/of/ . How can I copy the file to my local computer over SSH?

Your question is not clear on this: are you running scp on your local computer or inside the remote shell via SSH?

I wanted to pop this in as I can’t make it an answer. a program called FileZilla allows you to connect to your ssh and exchange files between your server and local device.

you can install Git and enter scp username@host:path_to_file path_in_the_local_machine This will ask for your password in the remote machine.

5 Answers 5

It depends on what your local OS is.

If your local OS is Unix-like, then try:

scp username@remoteHost:/remote/dir/file.txt /local/dir/ 

If your local OS is Windows ,then you should use pscp.exe utility. For example, below command will download file.txt from remote to D: disk of local machine.

pscp.exe username@remoteHost:/remote/dir/file.txt d:\ 

It seems your Local OS is Unix, so try the former one.

For those who don’t know what pscp.exe is and don’t know where it is, you can always go to putty official website to download it. And then open a CMD prompt, go to the pscp.exe directory where you put it. Then execute the command as provided above

EDIT

if you are using Windows OS above Windows 10, then you can use scp directly from its terminal, just like how Unix-like OS does. Thanks to @gijswijs @jaunt @icanfathom

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