Essential FTP Commands: A Complete Reference

If you're using the command-line ftp client (or the equivalent on Windows), the command set is small enough to learn in an afternoon. The protocol-level command list — the wire-format verbs an FTP server understands — is much longer. This post covers both: the dozen-or-so CLI commands you'll actually use daily at the top, followed by the complete protocol-level reference grouped by category. Plus the differences when you switch to SFTP, common recipes, and a downloadable cheat sheet.

Download the printable FTP commands cheat sheet (PDF) — one-page reference for your monitor.

The essential FTP CLI commands

These are the commands you'll type into the ftp> prompt of any standard FTP client. Learn these and you can do 95% of FTP work.

Command	What it does
open <host>	Connect to an FTP server
user <name>	Send your username
pass <password>	Send your password
pwd	Print working directory (where you are on the server)
cd <dir>	Change directory on the server
lcd <dir>	Change directory on your local machine
ls (or dir)	List files in the current remote directory
get <file>	Download a file from the server
put <file>	Upload a file to the server
mget <pattern>	Download multiple files (e.g., mget *.csv)
mput <pattern>	Upload multiple files
mkdir <dir>	Create a directory on the server
rmdir <dir>	Remove an empty directory on the server
delete <file>	Delete a file on the server
rename <old> <new>	Rename a file
binary	Switch to binary transfer mode (default for non-text)
ascii	Switch to ASCII transfer mode (text with line-ending translation)
passive	Toggle passive mode on/off
quit (or bye)	Disconnect and exit

A typical session looks like:

$ ftp ftp.example.com
Name: alice
Password: ********
230 Login successful
ftp> cd /reports
ftp> ls
ftp> get may.csv
ftp> put forecast.xlsx
ftp> quit

That's the whole job for most FTP work.

The full protocol-level command reference

The commands above are CLI niceties; underneath, the FTP client translates them into protocol-level verbs the server understands. These are what you'll see in protocol logs, packet captures, and the Telnet walkthroughs people use to debug FTP.

Connection and authentication

Command	Description
USER	Send the authentication username
PASS	Send the authentication password
ACCT	Send account information (rare, mainly mainframe-era)
REIN	Reinitialize the connection (log out, stay connected)
QUIT	End the session
AUTH	Negotiate security mechanism (used by FTPS for TLS upgrade)
ADAT	Authentication / security data
CCC	Clear command channel (post-auth, return to cleartext for control)
CONF	Confidentiality protection command
ENC	Privacy-protected channel
MIC	Integrity protection channel
PBSZ	Protection buffer size
PROT	Data channel protection level (C clear, P private)

Navigation

Command	Description
CWD	Change working directory
CDUP	Change to parent directory
PWD	Print working directory
SMNT	Mount different file structure (legacy, rare)
XCUP	Change to parent (deprecated synonym for CDUP)
XPWD	Print working directory (deprecated synonym for PWD)

Listing

Command	Description
LIST	List directory contents in human-readable format (ls -l style)
NLST	Name list — bare filenames only
MLSD	Machine-readable directory listing (modern replacement for LIST)
MLST	Machine-readable single-object info
STAT	Return server status (or, with a path, info about a path)
MDTM	Return last-modified time of a file
SIZE	Return file size in bytes
MFMT	Modify file's last-modified time
MFCT	Modify file's creation time
MFF	Modify file fact (generic)
DSIZ	Return directory size
AVBL	Return available space at a path

Transfer

Command	Description
RETR	Retrieve (download) a file from the server
STOR	Store (upload) a file to the server
STOU	Store unique (upload with auto-generated unique name)
APPE	Append to a file (or create if missing)
REST	Restart point — resume a transfer at a specific offset
ABOR	Abort the current transfer
ALLO	Allocate disk space for an incoming file
TYPE	Set transfer type (A ASCII, I Image/binary)
MODE	Set transfer mode (Stream / Block / Compressed)
STRU	Set file structure (File / Record / Page)

Data-connection setup

Command	Description
PORT	Active mode — tell the server which client port to connect to
PASV	Request passive mode — server opens a listening port
EPRT	Extended PORT (supports IPv6)
EPSV	Extended PASV (supports IPv6)
LPRT	Long PORT (deprecated, replaced by EPRT)
LPSV	Long PASV (deprecated, replaced by EPSV)
SPSV	Single-port passive mode

See our active vs passive FTP explainer for the practical implications.

File and directory management

Command	Description
DELE	Delete a file
RMD	Remove an empty directory
RMDA	Remove a directory tree (recursive — uncommon)
MKD	Make a directory
RNFR	Rename from (paired with RNTO)
RNTO	Rename to (must follow RNFR)
XRMD	Remove directory (deprecated synonym for RMD)
XMKD	Make directory (deprecated synonym for MKD)
XRCP	Remote copy (rarely implemented)

Server information and miscellaneous

Command	Description
SYST	Return the server's operating system identifier
HELP	List available commands (or, with an argument, help for one command)
NOOP	No-op — used for keepalive
FEAT	List protocol features the server supports
OPTS	Set options for a feature (e.g., OPTS UTF8 ON)
HOST	Identify the desired virtual host on a multi-host server
LANG	Set the language for server response messages
CSID	Client / server identification (rare)
THMB	Request a thumbnail of a remote image (rare)
SITE	Send site-specific commands (server-specific extension)

How CLI commands map to protocol commands

The CLI command and the protocol command don't always match name-for-name. A few of the common mappings:

CLI command	Protocol verb
get	RETR
put	STOR
ls	NLST or LIST
dir	LIST
mkdir	MKD
rmdir	RMD
delete	DELE
cd	CWD
pwd	PWD
binary	TYPE I
ascii	TYPE A
passive	(toggle — affects PASV vs PORT for next transfer)
bye / quit	QUIT

If you're debugging an FTP problem with packet captures or server logs, this is the translation table you need.

What changes when you use SFTP

SFTP shares the broad shape of FTP's command set but uses its own wire protocol (SSH file-transfer subsystem), not the FTP command verbs. The CLI commands look similar:

CLI command	Works in FTP	Works in SFTP
cd, ls, pwd, mkdir, rmdir, mget, mput, bye, quit	Yes	Yes
get, put	Yes	Yes
delete	Yes	No — use rm
rename	Yes	Yes (rename <old> <new>)
binary, ascii	Yes	No — SFTP is binary-only
open, close	Yes	No — connection model is different
passive	Yes	No — SFTP doesn't have active/passive
reget, reput	No	Yes (resume support is native)
chmod, chown	No (no Unix-permission semantics in FTP)	Yes
ln, symlink	No	Yes

SFTP gains the Unix-permission commands (chmod, chown, ln) because the protocol carries Unix-style file metadata; FTP doesn't standardize that. SFTP loses the transfer-mode flags (binary / ascii) because everything is binary by definition — line-ending translation is the application's responsibility.

Common recipes

Upload a single file in one shell command

echo "put forecast.xlsx /reports/" | ftp -n ftp.example.com <<EOF
user alice s3cret
binary
put forecast.xlsx /reports/forecast.xlsx
bye
EOF

This is the canonical "send a file from a cron job" pattern. For real automation, use curl --upload-file or a real library — ftp-via-heredoc is fragile.

Download a whole directory

ftp> cd /reports
ftp> binary
ftp> prompt off
ftp> mget *

prompt off suppresses the per-file confirmation; otherwise mget * asks you to confirm each download.

Resume an interrupted transfer

ftp> rest 1048576
ftp> get bigfile.iso

REST sets a restart point in bytes. Combined with get, the transfer resumes from byte 1048576 — useful if your previous transfer died and you want to skip the bytes you already have. SFTP's reget does the same thing automatically.

Show recent server activity from the CLI

ftp> stat

STAT returns the server's current state plus any session-level information it tracks. Useful for debugging stuck transfers.

Modern alternatives to typing FTP commands

For interactive use, graphical clients (FileZilla, Cyberduck, WinSCP) abstract these commands behind drag-and-drop — see our FileZilla alternatives roundup. For automation, the canonical paths are:

• Python — ftplib (FTP / FTPS) or paramiko (SFTP).
• Node.js — basic-ftp for FTP, ssh2 for SFTP.
• curl / wget — for one-off shell scripts, curl --upload-file and curl -O are cleaner than driving the ftp CLI.
• REST APIs — Files.com's REST API lets automation skip FTP entirely; SDKs in 8 languages.

For partner-facing FTP endpoints in 2026, Files.com is the File Orchestration Platform we'd recommend — your partners type the same commands at the FTP / SFTP prompt; the server side is fully managed (TLS, audit logging, MFA, key management, SOC 2). Free trial — provisioned in about 10 minutes.

For the narrow set of teams that must run file-transfer infrastructure inside their own datacenter, the free ExaVault on-premise appliance handles the same protocols from a self-hosted VM image.

FAQ

What's the most-used FTP command?

Probably get (download) and put (upload), followed by ls (list files) and cd (change directory). The full daily-use set is about a dozen commands; the rest of the protocol command list shows up mostly during debugging or for specialized features.

What's the difference between ls and dir in FTP?

In the standard FTP CLI, both list directory contents — dir is an alias for ls (or vice versa, depending on the client). At the protocol level, LIST returns a long-form listing (ls -l style) and NLST returns bare filenames only. The CLI's ls often calls NLST; dir often calls LIST. Behavior varies between clients.

What's the FTP command to resume a transfer?

REST <offset> followed by RETR <file> (for download) or STOR <file> (for upload). The CLI doesn't usually expose REST directly; most clients implement resume as an option in their UI. For automation, curl --continue-at - handles resume automatically.

How do I list files in FTP?

At the ftp> prompt, type ls or dir. To list a specific directory, use ls /path/to/directory. To get a machine-readable listing, the server-side MLSD command (if the server supports it) returns a standardized format that's easier to parse than the human-readable output.

What does pwd do in FTP?

pwd prints the current working directory on the remote server. Useful for figuring out where you are after a series of cd commands. The local equivalent in the FTP CLI is lpwd (some clients) or !pwd (others, which runs pwd in the local shell).

Can I script FTP commands?

Yes. The standard ftp CLI supports -n (no auto-login) plus reading commands from stdin, which lets you script with a heredoc (see the recipe above). For anything more complex, use a real library — lftp is a scriptable CLI with proper command syntax and error handling, or move up to a language binding like ftplib (Python) or basic-ftp (Node.js).

What's the FTP command for SFTP?

SFTP isn't FTP — it's an SSH subsystem, not the same protocol. The CLI commands are similar (get, put, cd, ls) but the wire-protocol verbs are entirely different. See our SFTP explainer for the underlying differences.