How do I copy a folder from remote to local using scp?

scp -r user@your.server.example.com:/path/to/foo /home/user/Desktop/

By not including the trailing '/' at the end of foo, you will copy the directory itself (including contents), rather than only the contents of the directory.

From man scp (See online manual)

-r Recursively copy entire directories

To use full power of scp you need to go through next steps:

1. Public key authorisation
2. Create SSH aliases

Then, for example if you have this ~/.ssh/config:

Host test
    User testuser
    HostName test-site.example
    Port 22022

Host prod
    User produser
    HostName production-site.example
    Port 22022

you'll save yourself from password entry and simplify scp syntax like this:

scp -r prod:/path/foo /home/user/Desktop   # copy to local
scp -r prod:/path/foo test:/tmp            # copy from remote prod to remote test

More over, you will be able to use remote path-completion:

scp test:/var/log/  # press tab twice
Display all 151 possibilities? (y or n)

For enabling remote bash-completion you need to have bash-shell on both <source> and <target> hosts, and properly working bash-completion. For more information see related questions:

How to enable autocompletion for remote paths when using scp?
SCP filename tab completion

To copy all from Local Location to Remote Location (Upload)

scp -r /path/from/local username@hostname:/path/to/remote

To copy all from Remote Location to Local Location (Download)

scp -r username@hostname:/path/from/remote /path/to/local

Custom Port where xxxx is custom port number

 scp -r -P xxxx username@hostname:/path/from/remote /path/to/local

Copy on current directory from Remote to Local

scp -r username@hostname:/path/from/remote .

Help:

1. -r Recursively copy all directories and files
2. Always use full location from /, Get full location/path by pwd
3. scp will replace all existing files
4. hostname will be hostname or IP address
5. if custom port is needed (besides port 22) use -P PortNumber
6. . (dot) - it means current working directory, So download/copy from server and paste here only.

Note: Sometimes the custom port will not work due to the port not being allowed in the firewall, so make sure that custom port is allowed in the firewall for incoming and outgoing connection

What I always use is:

scp -r username@IP:/path/to/server/source/folder/  .

. (dot): it means current folder. so copy from server and paste here only.

IP: can be an IP address like 125.55.41.311 or it can be host like ns1.mysite.example.

Better to first compress catalog on remote server:

tar czfP backup.tar.gz /path/to/catalog

Secondly, download from remote:

scp user@your.server.example.com:/path/to/backup.tar.gz .

At the end, extract the files:

tar -xzvf backup.tar.gz

Typical scenario,

scp -r -P port username@ip:/path-to-folder  .

explained with an sample,

scp -r -P 27000 abc@10.70.12.12:/tmp/hotel_dump .

where,

port = 27000
username = "abc" , remote server username
path-to-folder = tmp/hotel_dump
. = current local directory

And if you have one hell of a files to download from the remote location and if you don't much care about security, try changing the scp default encryption (Triple-DES) to something like 'blowfish'.

This will reduce file copying time drastically.

scp -c blowfish -r user@your.server.example.com:/path/to/foo /home/user/Desktop/

Go to Files on your unity toolbar

Press Ctrl + l and write here_goes_your_user_name@192.168.10.123

The 192.168.1.103 is the host that you want to connect.

The here one example

In case you run into "Too many authentication failures", specify the exact SSH key you have added to your severs ssh server:

scp -r -i /path/to/local/key user@remote.tld:/path/to/folder /your/local/target/dir

The question was how to copy a folder from remote to local with scp command.

$ scp -r userRemote@remoteIp:/path/remoteDir /path/localDir

But here is the better way for do it with sftp - SSH File Transfer Protocol (also Secure File Transfer Protocol, or SFTP) is a network protocol that provides file access, file transfer, and file management over any reliable data stream.(wikipedia).

$ sftp user_remote@remote_ip

sftp> cd /path/to/remoteDir

sftp> get -r remoteDir

Fetching /path/to/remoteDir to localDir 100% 398 0.4KB/s 00:00

For help about sftp command just type help or ?.

I don't know why but I was had to use local folder before source server directive . to make it work

scp -r . root@888.888.888.888:/usr/share/nginx/www/example.org/

The premise of the question is incorrect. The idea is, once logged into ssh, how to move files from the logged-in machine back to the client that is logged in. However, scp is not aware of nor can it use the ssh connection. It is making its own connections. So the simple solution is create a new terminal window on the local workstation, and run scp that transfers files from the remote server to local machine. E.g., scp -i key user@remote:/remote-dir/remote-file /local-dir/local-file

For Windows OS, we used this command.

pscp -r -P 22 hostname@IP:/path/to/Downloads   ./

It is better to use rsync than scp

Simple one liner :

rsync -aP myfiles/ root@10.14.33.129:server_dir/

a to copy recursively, preserves symbolic links, special and device files, modification times, groups, owners, and permissions. It’s more commonly used than -r and is the recommended flag to use.

P to show progress

General form :

rsync -a ~/dir1 username@remote_host:destination_directory

With root as user, and to a specific IP address.

rsync -aP myfiles/ root@10.14.33.129:server_dir/

You can refer to digitalocean guide for Rsync