How do I use sftp to get a directory and all its contents?

Question

When I try to use the command get from sftp, I get the error saying that it is not a normal file. Is there a way around this?

Answer 1

You can connect to the host using sftp -r and then get the directory. If you forget to use -r when you connect, you can use get -r.

sftp -r me@somehost

Or

sftp> get -r tmp/
Fetching /home/me/tmp/ to tmp
Retrieving /home/me/tmp
/home/me/new.orig.dmp            100%  417KB 416.8KB/s   00:00    
/home/me/untangle.dmp        100%  398KB 398.3KB/s   00:00    
/home/me/repos.orig.dmp          100%  415KB 415.2KB/s   00:00    
/home/me/me-untangle.dmp 100%   32KB  32.4KB/s   00:00    
sftp>

If you want to always ensure you pass -r to sftp, add it as an alias to your ~/.bashrc or similar.

alias sftp="sftp -r"

From man 1 sftp

 -r      Recursively copy entire directories when uploading and download‐
         ing.  Note that sftp does not follow symbolic links encountered
         in the tree traversal.
         .........

 get [-Ppr] remote-path [local-path]
         ........
         If either the -P or -p flag is specified, then full file permis‐
         sions and access times are copied too.
         If the -r flag is specified then directories will be copied
         recursively.  Note that sftp does not follow symbolic links when
         performing recursive transfers.