scp vs rsync vs sftp

Three tools, three cases

• scp — old, simple, ssh-based copy. Good for one-shot single-file pushes/pulls.
• rsync — covered last lesson. Smart sync; the everyday choice.
• sftp — interactive ftp-like client over ssh. Good for browsing a remote tree without mounting it.

scp essentials

scp file.txt user@host:/path/         # local → remote
scp user@host:/path/file.txt .         # remote → local
scp -r dir/ user@host:/path/           # recursive
scp -P 2222 file.txt user@host:        # custom port (capital P!)

Note: capital -P for port (lowercase -p means preserve perms, opposite of ssh's -p).

scp deprecation note

OpenSSH has been moving to use SFTP under the hood for scp since 9.0; behavior is mostly the same but a few flags differ. For new scripts, prefer rsync or sftp. Old scp continues to work.

sftp interactive

sftp user@host
sftp> pwd
sftp> ls
sftp> cd /var/log
sftp> get app.log         # download
sftp> put local.txt       # upload
sftp> bye

When to use which

• One file, both locations clear → scp is fine.
• Multiple files, repeat operations, want resume + delta → rsync.
• Need to browse the remote tree by hand, decide what to download → sftp.
• Need a mounted directory → sshfs (brew install macfuse + sshfs, fragile but exists).