We recommend that you download data via rsync using the command line, especially for large files using the North American or European download servers.
For example, when downloading ENCODE files to your present directory (./), use an expression such as:
-rsync -a -P rsync://hgdownload.soe.ucsc.edu/goldenPath/hg19/encodeDCC/wgEncodeDir/wgEncodeFile ./rsync -a -P rsync://hgdownload-euro.soe.ucsc.edu/goldenPath/hg19/encodeDCC/wgEncodeDir/wgEncodeFile ./rsync -a -P rsync://hgdownload.soe.ucsc.edu/gbdb/hg38/uniprot/unipAliTrembl.bb ./rsync -a -P rsync://hgdownload-euro.soe.ucsc.edu/gbdb/hg38/uniprot/unipAliTrembl.bb ./To download the entire directory (note the trailing slash), use an expression such as:
-rsync -a -P rsync://hgdownload.soe.ucsc.edu/goldenPath/hg19/encodeDCC/wgEncodeDir/ ./rsync -a -P rsync://hgdownload-euro.soe.ucsc.edu/goldenPath/hg19/encodeDCC/wgEncodeDir/ ./rsync -a -P rsync://hgdownload.soe.ucsc.edu/gbdb/hg38/uniprot/ ./rsync -a -P rsync://hgdownload-euro.soe.ucsc.edu/gbdb/hg38/uniprot/ ./To obtain a file's location (URL) to use with rsync (rsync://hgdownload.soe.ucsc.edu/... or rsync://hgdownload-euro.soe.ucsc.edu/...), navigate in your browser to our FTP site at ftp://hgdownload.soe.ucsc.edu/ or our downloads page at http://hgdownload.soe.ucsc.edu/downloads.html, and look for your file of interest. To learn more about rsync's options, type "man rsync" on the command line.
If you are not comfortable using the command line, you can download your file via FTP in your
browser at ftp://hgdownload.soe.ucsc.edu/goldenPath, or from our downloads page at
We do not encourage the use of FTP for downloading large data files.
Rsync is a more efficient and convenient transport mechanism, and is therefore quicker and easier to
use for downloading our data files. However, here are the command line steps for FTP, should you
choose to use it:
+The same ftp connection can also be made to our European server:
+
To download multiple files from the UNIX ftp command line, use the "mget" command. You may
want to use the
Or to download all the files in the directory:FTP from the command line
$ ftp hgdownload.soe.ucsc.edu
Name: anonymous
Password: <your email address>
ftp> cd goldenPath
ftp> cd <assembly name> (e.g., hg19)
ftp> cd <data directory> (e.g., liftOver)
+$ ftp hgdownload-euro.soe.ucsc.eduprompt command to toggle the interactive mode if you do not want to be
prompted for each file that you download.ftp> mget [filename1] [filename2] ...ftp> mget -a