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?

sshscp

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edited Oct 5 '18 at 18:04

Stevoisiak

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asked May 31 '15 at 3:07

Vincent

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• Your question is not clear on this: are you running scp on your local computer or inside the remote shell via SSH? – William Price May 31 '15 at 3:17
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• Inside the remote shell via SSH, I believe. – Vincent May 31 '15 at 4:02

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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.

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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

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edited May 31 '15 at 4:15

 

answered May 31 '15 at 3:23

mainframer

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• My local OS is Windows. I downloaded the pscp.exe from the putty website. I tried opening it up and nothing came up. Also, I tried the command you listed above and was given: pscp.exe comman not found. Also tried it without the .exe and resulted in the same error. – Vincent May 31 '15 at 3:57 
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• Open a CMD prompt, and go to the pscp.exe directory where you put it. Then execute the command as provided above. – mainframer May 31 '15 at 4:01 
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• using scp on a mac has to be provided ./ parameter to signify that the file has to be downloaded in the current folder on mac machine. – Sarang Manjrekar Jul 2 '18 at 11:11
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• With Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL, basically Ubuntu on Windows) you can now also open up Bash if your Local OS is Windows, and just use scp. Pro-tip: you can access your Windows file system from WSL. It's under /mnt/c. So you can do something like this: scp username@remoteHost:/remote/dir/file.txt /mnt/c – gijswijs Apr 25 '19 at 3:42 
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• As of the 2018 Autumn update, Windows 10 now comes with OpenSSH and is on PATH. This means you can use the scp command on Windows 10, too. – jaunt Sep 23 '19 at 20:45

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