A quick annoyed post… I just spent two hours searching the Internet for a means on how to recursively download a complete FTP folder, command-line, and in a simple way. Oh yeah, and preferably freeware.
The solutions I found were not what I expected: a $50 software product providing a GUI (I said command-line! [:@]), a bloated scheduler thingy that does download in the background (I said simple! [8o|]), to batch-files relying on Windows built-in ftp.exe and a gigantic list of all files that need to be downloaded.
Here’s the thing: the searching really p*ssed me off! Not one thing provides the amount of ease I demand! Luckily, my good friend C# came to the rescue. CodeProject.com provided me this article on a ready-to-use FTP client class. Some additional magic, a glass of cola and… Here’s FTPFolderDownload version 1.0! Feel free to download, compile, modify, abuse, … this piece of code.
Usage is simple: pass along some command line arguments (list is below), and see your FTP files coming in.
List of arguments:
/server="<server hostname>"
/username="<username>"
/password="<password>"
/remoteFolder="<remote folder>"
/localFolder="<local folder>"
/recursive