Downloading files using FtpWebRequest

Just figured it out:

    private void DownloadFile(string userName, string password, string ftpSourceFilePath, string localDestinationFilePath)
    {
        int bytesRead = 0;
        byte[] buffer = new byte[2048];

        FtpWebRequest request = CreateFtpWebRequest(ftpSourceFilePath, userName, password, true);
        request.Method = WebRequestMethods.Ftp.DownloadFile;

        Stream reader = request.GetResponse().GetResponseStream();
        FileStream fileStream = new FileStream(localDestinationFilePath, FileMode.Create);

        while (true)
        {
            bytesRead = reader.Read(buffer, 0, buffer.Length);

            if (bytesRead == 0)
                break;

            fileStream.Write(buffer, 0, bytesRead);
        }
        fileStream.Close();       
    }

Had to use a FileStream instead.

Easiest way

The most trivial way to download a file from an FTP server using .NET framework is using WebClient.DownloadFile method:

WebClient client = new WebClient();
client.Credentials = new NetworkCredential("username", "password");
client.DownloadFile(
    "ftp://ftp.example.com/remote/path/file.zip", @"C:\local\path\file.zip");

Advanced options

Use FtpWebRequest class, if you need a greater control only, that WebClient class does not offer (like TLS/SSL encryption, progress monitoring, ascii/text transfer mode, resuming transfers, etc). An easy way, is to just copy an FTP response stream to FileStream using Stream.CopyTo method:

FtpWebRequest request =
    (FtpWebRequest)WebRequest.Create("ftp://ftp.example.com/remote/path/file.zip");
request.Credentials = new NetworkCredential("username", "password");
request.Method = WebRequestMethods.Ftp.DownloadFile;

using (Stream ftpStream = request.GetResponse().GetResponseStream())
using (Stream fileStream = File.Create(@"C:\local\path\file.zip"))
{
    ftpStream.CopyTo(fileStream);
}

Progress monitoring

If you need to monitor a download progress, you have to copy the contents by chunks yourself:

FtpWebRequest request =
    (FtpWebRequest)WebRequest.Create("ftp://ftp.example.com/remote/path/file.zip");
request.Credentials = new NetworkCredential("username", "password");
request.Method = WebRequestMethods.Ftp.DownloadFile;

using (Stream ftpStream = request.GetResponse().GetResponseStream())
using (Stream fileStream = File.Create(@"C:\local\path\file.zip"))
{
    byte[] buffer = new byte[10240];
    int read;
    while ((read = ftpStream.Read(buffer, 0, buffer.Length)) > 0)
    {
        fileStream.Write(buffer, 0, read);
        Console.WriteLine("Downloaded {0} bytes", fileStream.Position);
    }
}

For GUI progress (WinForms ProgressBar), see:
FtpWebRequest FTP download with ProgressBar

Downloading folder

If you want to download all files from a remote folder, see
C# Download all files and subdirectories through FTP.