freeCodeCamp/guide/english/linux/how-to-download-files-with-wget/index.md

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How to download files using the "wget" utility in Linux

How to download files using the "wget" utility in Linux

This article is a quick tutorial on using the wget utility on Unix based OS. GNU Wget is a free utility for non-interactive download of files from the Web. It supports HTTP, HTTPS, and FTP protocols, as well as retrieval through HTTP proxies.

Installing wget

The wget utility is a freely available package and licensed under the GNU GPL License. This utility can be installed on any Unix-like OS including Windows and MacOS.

Basic syntax

The basic syntax of wget is...

wget [option]... [URL]...

Details of wget

wget --version

wget --help

Downloading a single file

wget http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/wget/wget-1.19.5.tar.gz

Downloading from FTP

wget ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/wget/wget-1.19.5.tar.gz.sig

Restrict download speed limits

wget --limit-rate=100k http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/wget/wget-1.19.5.tar.gz

Download all listed files within a directory and its sub-directories (does not download embedded page elements):

wget --mirror --no-parent https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/

Download the contents of an URL via authenticated FTP:

wget --ftp-user=username --ftp-password=password ftp://example.com

Download files in background

wget -b /wget/log.txt ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/wget/wget-1.10.1.tar.gz.sig

You can play with remaining features of the wget utility