sftp commands: get, put, ls, lcd and batch mode

Q: How do I download a folder with sftp?

Use get -r, as in get -r site dl/site. Without -r, sftp does not download a folder.

Q: How do I change the local folder in sftp?

Use lcd, for example lcd ~/Downloads. Commands that start with l, such as lls and lpwd, act on your machine, and the others on the server.

Q: Why does sftp -b fail with Permission denied?

Batch mode cannot ask for a password, so it needs a key login. Set up an SSH key for the account, then run sftp -b again.

Connect

sftp user@server
sftp -P 2222 user@server
sftp user@server:/var/log/

The port option is a capital -P. The last form opens the prompt in that folder.

Commands at the prompt

Commands that start with l act on your machine. The rest act on the server.

Server	Your machine	What it does
`pwd`	`lpwd`	Show the current folder
`cd /tmp`	`lcd dl`	Change folder
`ls -la`	`lls`	List files
`mkdir upload`	`lmkdir upload`	Create a folder

Moving files

Command	What it does
`get report.pdf`	Download to the local folder
`get report.pdf copy.pdf`	Download with another name
`get -r site dl/site2`	Download a folder
`put report.pdf`	Upload to the remote folder
`put -r site`	Upload a folder
`reget big.bin`	Continue a partial download
`reput big.bin`	Continue a partial upload

Managing files on the server

Command	What it does
`rename old.pdf new.pdf`	Rename or move
`cp report.pdf copy.pdf`	Copy a file on the server, if it runs OpenSSH 9.0 or later
`rm old.pdf`	Delete a file
`rmdir site`	Delete an empty folder
`chmod 640 file`	Change permissions
`ln -s target name`	Create a symbolic link
`df -h`	Show free space
`!ls`	Run a command on your machine
`help`	List commands
`bye`	Leave

There is no recursive delete: rm -r stops with rm: Invalid flag -r. rm removes one file and rmdir only removes an empty folder, so a full folder has to be emptied first.

One file without the prompt

sftp user@server:/etc/hostname local-copy

For quick one-off copies, scp examples are often shorter. The full comparison is in scp vs SFTP vs rsync.

Batch mode for scripts

Put the commands in a file:

cd /tmp
put report.pdf
bye

Then run it:

sftp -b commands.txt user@server

Or read from standard input with -:

printf 'put report.pdf /tmp/report.pdf\nbye\n' | sftp -b - user@server

It needs a key login

-b turns off password prompts. With a password-only account it stopped in our test with:

user@server: Permission denied (publickey,password).
Connection closed

Set up a key first. See how to generate an ed25519 key.

It stops at the first error

This is the point of -b. A command that fails ends the run with exit code 1, so your script can react:

$ sftp -b b2.txt user@server
sftp> cd /nosuch
stat remote: No such file or directory
$ echo $?
1

To allow a failure on one line, start it with -. To hide the echo of a line, start it with @:

-cd /nosuch
@pwd

With the - line, the run in our test continued and ended with exit code 0.

Piping commands without -b

sftp user@server < commands.txt does not stop for errors. In our test it continued after a failed cd and ended with exit code 0. It can still ask for a password from your terminal. Use it for a quick manual job. Use -b in scripts.

Questions

How do I download a folder with sftp?