PuTTY Secure Copy (PSCP) and PuTTY SFTP (PSFTP) enable you to transfer files to another system after opening a command window on a Windows computer. Both applications are available as free downloads.
Go to the download site and find the latest release version of the pscp.exe and psftp.exe files.
Click on each and save them to your hard drive—for example, in your C:\Users\username\Downloads folder or in C:\Program Files.
To run either program, first open a command window:
- Enter cmd.exe in the search field of your Start menu.
- Press Enter.
Then follow the applicable instructions below.
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PSCP transfer
To copy a file or files using PSCP, open a command window and change to the directory in which you saved pscp.exe.
C:\Users\jbsmith>cd C:\Program Files
Then type pscp, followed by the path that identifies the files to copy and the target directory, as in this example.
pscp C:\Users\jbsmith\directory\*.txt jbsmith@cheyenne.ucar.edu:/glade/u/home/username
Press Enter, then follow your usual authentication procedures to execute the transfer.
Token_Response: file1.txt | 0 kB | 0.5 kB/s | ETA: 00:00:00 | 100% file1.txt | 0 kB | 0.5 kB/s | ETA: 00:00:00 | 100% file1.txt | 0 kB | 0.5 kB/s | ETA: 00:00:00 | 100% C:\Users\jbsmith\Downloads>
When the transfer is complete, type exit, then press Enter to close the command window.
PSFTP transfer
Open your command window, then change to the directory in which you saved psftp.exe.
C:\Users\jbsmith>cd C:\Program Files
To start a session, type psftp followed by your login for the target computer.
psftp jbsmith@cheyenne.ucar.edu
Press Enter, then follow your usual authentication procedures to log in to the remote machine.
Token_Response: Remote working directory is /glade/u/home/jbsmith psftp>
Within the session that you just started, you can copy a file or files from your computer to the remote system by changing between directories as needed and executing multiple put commands*.
Use lcd to change local directories, and cd to change directories on the remote system, as in this example:
psftp> lcd ..\documents psftp> lcd documents New local directory is C:\Users\jbsmith\documents psftp> put file1.txt local:file1.txt => remote:/glade/u/home/jbsmith/file1.txt psftp> cd /glade/scratch/jbsmith Remote directory is now /glade/scratch/jbsmith psftp> mput file*.txt local:file1.txt => remote:/glade/scratch/jbsmith/file1.txt local:file2.txt => remote:/glade/scratch/jbsmith/file2.txt local:file3.txt => remote:/glade/scratch/jbsmith/file3.txt psftp>
To end the psftp session, type exit, then press Enter.
To close the command window, type exit again, then press Enter.
* To copy multiple files, you can use a wildcard and an mput or mget command rather than put or get.