wget command Examples

The command wget is used mostly to retrieve files from external resources via HTTP or FTP, in this article we’ll provide several examples on how to use it

Downloading a file using wget

The following command will download a file via a HTTP request

wget domain.com/file.txt

This will save it under the same name as it was on the server, you can save it under a desired name. Notice that files should keep their extensions

wget -O myFile.txt domain.com/file.txt

This can be used to download external files necessary for a project

Downloading a JavaScript file:

wget https://code.jquery.com/jquery-3.3.1.min.js

Downloading a single file via FTP

wget could be used to download files via FTP as well as via HTTP, you’ll have to know your credentials and the Hostname or IP of the FTP server

wget --ftp-user=FTP_USERNAME --ftp-password='FTP_PASSWORD' ftp://URL/PATH_TO_FILE/FILE_NAME

Downloading all files in a directory

The syntax is the same as with a single file, however, there’s a trailing * at the end of the directory instead of a specified file

wget --ftp-user=FTP_USERNAME --ftp-password='FTP_PASSWORD' ftp://URL/PATH_TO_FTP_DIRECTORY/*

Download a file in the background

You can download a file in the background

wget -bq domain.com/file.txt

Download the full HTML file of a website

You can replicate the HTML content of a website with the –mirror option (or -m for short)

wget -m http://domain.com

Downloading multiple files

You can download multiple files that have their URLs stored in a file, each on its own line

cat urls.txt
url1.com/file
url2.com/file
url3.com/file

wget -i urls.txt

Experiment with different wget commands or use the above-mentioned wget examples on our cheap cPanel hosting packages, Linux SSD VPS plans or Linux Dedicated Servers.