WGET - usage tips

Cristian Radulescu • November 17, 2007

Examples

If you need only to download something from an url:

wget https://example.com/image.jpg

With user (cristian) and password (abc123):

wget https://example.com/document.pdf --user=cristian --password=abc123

Download from an url list (list.txt):

# list.txt
https://example.com/image1.jpg
https://example.com/image2.jpg
https://example.com/image3.jpg
wget -i list.txt

When the connection fails you can continue:

wget -c https://example.com/compressed.zip

The default number of retries is set to 20. Set the number of retries to infinity:

wget -t 0 -c https://example.com/compressed.zip

Download all files from a directory:

wget -p https://example.com/assets/img/

Download files with specific extensions (.jpg, .gif, .png):

wget -nd -r -l1 -A.jpg -A.gif -A.png https://example.com/images/

(-nd no directory, -r recursive download, -l1 level 1, no subdirectories).

Shell script example

If the files are named useng a pattern (like wallpaper_1.jpg, *wallpaper_2.jpg, ..., *wallpaper*_284.jpg, *wallpaper*_285.jpg*) you can use a simple shell script:

#!/bin/bash
for ((i = 1; i <= 285; i ++))
  do
    wget -c "https://example.com/wallpapers/wallpaper_"$i".jpg"
done

or type in a console:

for ((i = 1; i <= 285; i ++)); do wget -c "https://example.com/wallpapers/wallpaper_"$i".jpg"; done