WinSCP - Download files with specific extension recursively

The WinSCP FTP client supports scripting as we can read on https://winscp.net/eng/docs/guide_automation.

In a previous life, I was often faced with the need to download a certain type of file, e.g. connect to an FTP server and retrieve PHP files locally for analysis.

Downloading everything just to search inside it is sometimes overkill: Search your FTP server at lightning speed does the search on the server. And once the files are local, jakzal/phpqa gives you every PHP analysis tool without installing a thing.

Since WinSCP allows automation, it's easy to write a little script to do just that.

As an example, we'll thus download any .php files from a host.

The script​

The script is pretty straightforward, if you can believe it:

lcd "c:\temp"?

open ftp://USERNAME:PASSWORD@HOST_OR_IP/?

cd /public_html

option transfer ascii?

get -filemask:*.php *?

close

exit

How to use​

1. Save the previous script as, f.i., C:\temp\download.txt
2. Edit the script and make these changes:
   1. Where files should be downloaded, local folder (line lcd "c:\temp")
   2. In case of need, replace ftp by sftp
   3. USERNAME: the FTP username
   4. PASSWORD: the password associated to this account
   5. HOST_OR_IP: the FTP host name or its IP
   6. The remote folder from where the files should be downloaded (line cd /public_html)
   7. The file extension to download (if not .php) (line get -filemask:*.php *)
   8. Save the script
3. Start a DOS session
4. Run cd c:\temp
5. Run winscp.com from there: type "C:\Program Files (x86)\WinSCP\WinSCP.com" /script="c:\temp\download.txt"

If everything is correctly set up, WinSCP will start a session terminal and will start to download each .php file found under your remote folder (sub-folders included).