How do I use scp
to copy a folder from a remote server to my local machine?
When using scp
, the first path will be the source, and the second will be the destination. Therefore, to copy from remote to local, we specify a remote path followed by a local path, as below:
scp -r user@remote:/path/to/folder /home/user/
The -r
flag is used to recursively copy all contents of the directory, similar to how you would use -r
with the rm
or cp
commands locally.
The scp
command performs a copy operation over SSH. Depending on how your SSH connection to the remote server is configured, you may be asked for a password for the remote user or a passphrase for your local SSH key. If this is your first time connecting to the remote server, you will be asked whether to trust its fingerprint.
To find out more about using scp
, type man scp
into your terminal.