How to download files from a UNIX server via SSH to my desktop?

Question

Newbie here, I just got SSH access to my shared hosting server (unix). I am current in a directory on the server where there is a file called images.zip. I want to download this to my desktop (I am running windows locally if that matters). Which command do I need and what is the syntax?

Solution 1

You can use winscp.

Solution 2

For completeness, if you're on a Mac or Linux, you can simply open up a terminal and execute sftp <uname>@<host>. And then either cd to the path or execute a get <path> command to download the file.

There's also SCP you could use to directly download the file.

Solution 3

Grab a copy of WinSCP; it's free/open source SFTP (and other protocols) client.

Solution 4

pscp Is also a possibility (from the putty suite)

Solution 5

Strange,No-one mentioned PSFTP

type help for a list of commands,

what i would typically do is to

lcd(change local directory)

lpwd(local present working directory)

cd PATHNAME(to the destination directory)

get FILENAME (will download the FILENAME)

dats about that

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Comments

[Admin]

Is there no built in command to do this, for example to copy a file I would do cp file.html file_copy.html. Is there no such default way of doing a download in Unix? It just seems like such a common task.

[Software Mechanic]

you are talking about the scp command. But since you are using a windows client the command is not available.

[Xenoactive]

@James, for some reason, the ability to ssh to a server or scp a file is consistently missing from each version of Windows.

[Software Mechanic]

@James: i missed out the Cygwin option. See Johan's answer