wget Command Guide: Downloading Files from the Command Line

# Download a single file to the current directory
wget https://example.com/file.tar.gz

# Download and save with a specific filename
wget -O myfile.tar.gz https://example.com/file.tar.gz

# Download to a specific directory
wget -P /tmp/downloads https://example.com/file.tar.gz

# Download quietly (no progress output)
wget -q https://example.com/file.tar.gz

# Download and print to stdout (pipe to another command)
wget -qO- https://example.com/data.json | jq .

#!/bin/bash
# Download a list of files from the same base URL

base_url="https://example.com/releases/"
files="app-1.0.tar.gz app-1.1.tar.gz app-1.2.tar.gz"

for file in $files; do
    echo "Downloading: ${base_url}${file}"
    wget -c -N -P downloads/ "${base_url}${file}"
done

# urls.txt — one URL per line
# https://example.com/file1.tar.gz
# https://example.com/file2.tar.gz
# https://example.com/file3.tar.gz

wget -i urls.txt -P downloads/

# Download 4 files in parallel
cat urls.txt | xargs -n 1 -P 4 wget -q -P downloads/

# Resume an interrupted download
wget -c https://example.com/large-file.iso

# Useful for large files — if the connection drops, just re-run the same command

# Mirror an entire website
wget --mirror --convert-links --adjust-extension \
     --page-requisites --no-parent \
     https://example.com/

# Flags explained:
# --mirror              = recursive + timestamps + infinite depth
# --convert-links       = rewrite links for offline browsing
# --adjust-extension    = add .html to files without extensions
# --page-requisites     = download CSS, images, JS needed to display pages
# --no-parent           = don't go up to parent directories

# Limit recursion depth
wget -r -l 2 https://example.com/docs/

# HTTP Basic Auth
wget --user=username --password=secret https://example.com/protected/file.zip

# Or use a .netrc file (more secure — keeps credentials out of shell history)
# ~/.netrc:
# machine example.com login username password secret
wget --netrc https://example.com/protected/file.zip

# FTP with credentials
wget ftp://username:[email protected]/file.tar.gz

# Limit download speed to 500KB/s
wget --limit-rate=500k https://example.com/large-file.iso

# Wait 1 second between requests (for recursive downloads)
wget -r --wait=1 https://example.com/

# Random wait between 0.5 and 1.5 seconds
wget -r --wait=1 --random-wait https://example.com/

# Follow redirects (default behavior, but explicit)
wget --max-redirect=5 https://example.com/redirect-me

# Skip SSL certificate verification (use with caution)
wget --no-check-certificate https://self-signed.example.com/file

# Use a custom CA certificate
wget --ca-certificate=/path/to/ca.crt https://example.com/file

# Set a custom User-Agent
wget --user-agent="Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; MyBot/1.0)" https://example.com/

# Add custom headers
wget --header="Authorization: Bearer mytoken" \
     --header="Accept: application/json" \
     https://api.example.com/data

# Send a POST request
wget --post-data="key=value&other=data" https://example.com/api/endpoint

# Save output log to a file
wget -o download.log https://example.com/file.tar.gz

# Append to an existing log
wget -a download.log https://example.com/file.tar.gz

# Show only errors
wget -q --show-progress https://example.com/file.tar.gz

# Verbose output (useful for debugging)
wget -v https://example.com/file.tar.gz

# Spider mode — check if URLs exist without downloading
wget --spider https://example.com/file.tar.gz

#!/bin/bash
set -e

URL="https://example.com/app-2.0.tar.gz"
EXPECTED_SHA256="abc123..."

wget -q -O app.tar.gz "$URL"

echo "$EXPECTED_SHA256  app.tar.gz" | sha256sum --check
echo "Download verified successfully"

#!/bin/bash
# Download files with automatic retry on failure

BASE_URL="https://example.com/data/"
FILES="dataset-01.csv dataset-02.csv dataset-03.csv"
OUTPUT_DIR="./data"

mkdir -p "$OUTPUT_DIR"

for file in $FILES; do
    wget \
        --tries=3 \
        --retry-connrefused \
        --waitretry=5 \
        --timeout=30 \
        -c \
        -P "$OUTPUT_DIR" \
        "${BASE_URL}${file}" \
        && echo "OK: $file" \
        || echo "FAILED: $file"
done

#!/bin/bash
# Download a documentation site for offline reading

SITE="https://docs.example.com/"
OUTPUT="./offline-docs"

wget \
    --mirror \
    --convert-links \
    --adjust-extension \
    --page-requisites \
    --no-parent \
    --directory-prefix="$OUTPUT" \
    --wait=0.5 \
    --random-wait \
    --limit-rate=1m \
    "$SITE"

echo "Site mirrored to $OUTPUT"