What Is the Command to Download a File in Linux?

Wget and Curl are among the wide range of command line tools that Linux offers for the downloading of files. Both offer a huge set of features that cater to different needs of the users. If users simply want to download files recursively, then Wget would be a good choice.

How do I download a file in Unix?

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.

How do I download files from the console?

wget and curl are just two of the most popular commands for downloading files in Linux. There are more such command line tools. Terminal based web-browsers like elinks, w3m etc can also be used for downloading files in command line. Personally, for a simple download, I prefer using wget over curl.