Upload and download a file to/from FTP server in C#/.NET

Solution 1:

Upload

The most trivial way to upload a binary file to an FTP server using .NET framework is using WebClient.UploadFile:

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

If you need a greater control, that WebClient does not offer (like TLS/SSL encryption, ascii/text transfer mode, transfer resuming, etc), use FtpWebRequest. Easy way is to just copy a FileStream to FTP stream using Stream.CopyTo:

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

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

If you need to monitor an upload 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.UploadFile;  

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

For GUI progress (WinForms ProgressBar), see:
How can we show progress bar for upload with FtpWebRequest

If you want to upload all files from a folder, see
Recursive upload to FTP server in C#.

Download

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

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");

If you need a greater control, that WebClient does not offer (like TLS/SSL encryption, ascii/text transfer mode, resuming transfers, etc), use FtpWebRequest. Easy way is to just copy an FTP response stream to FileStream using Stream.CopyTo:

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);
}

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

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