Download all files from FTP in Python

You can use this Python script to download / clone entire FTP directory recursively from remote FTP Host. Let’s say you would like to download www-data directory and all sub directories inside this one from ftp.test.com server.

#!/usr/bin/python

import sys
import ftplib
import os
import time

server = "FTPHOST"
user = "anonymous"
password = "anonymous"
source = "/Folder/SourceFolder/"
destination = "/home/user/downloads/"
interval = 0.05

ftp = ftplib.FTP(server)
ftp.login(user, password)


def downloadFiles(path, destination):
	try:
		ftp.cwd(path)		
		os.chdir(destination)
		mkdir_p(destination[0:len(destination)-1] + path)
		print "Created: " + destination[0:len(destination)-1] + path
	except OSError:		
		pass
	except ftplib.error_perm:		
		print "Error: could not change to " + path
		sys.exit("Ending Application")
	
	filelist=ftp.nlst()

	for file in filelist:
		time.sleep(interval)
		try:			
			ftp.cwd(path + file + "/")			
			downloadFiles(path + file + "/", destination)
		except ftplib.error_perm:
			os.chdir(destination[0:len(destination)-1] + path)
			
			try:
				ftp.retrbinary("RETR " + file, open(os.path.join(destination + path, file),"wb").write)
				print "Downloaded: " + file
			except:
				print "Error: File could not be downloaded " + file
	return
	
def mkdir_p(path):
	try:
		os.makedirs(path)
	except OSError as exc:
		if exc.errno == errno.EEXIST and os.path.isdir(path):
			pass
		else:
			raise

downloadFiles(source, destination)