Hi, I am a newbie and not really familiar with commands, I have searched the forum, but there was only one thread. That thread suggested compressing it and then decompressing it. So I am wondering, what format do I compress it to, and how do I decompress it once I uploaded it from within SFTP (specifically what commands...). If anyone knows a simpler way to upload entire directories via SFTP, feel free to share.

Afaik there is no way to recursively copy directories via sftp with the normal command line client.
So you might either do as suggested in that other thread, using for example gzip with the -r switch for recursive operation and gunzip to uncompress it. There are other compression tools like bzip2/bunzip2.
Not all of them have an option for operating recursively on directories so a common way is to tar them 1st, and then compress.

It implies of course that you have a possibility on the recipient side where you upload your data, to uncompress and/or un'tar there.

The most simple way might be a graphical interface like for example Servant Salamander which can use many different protocols including sftp (if this is an option for you). The advantage is that you dont have to worry about de-/compressing and stuff, since it just scans your local directory structure you want to submit and just creates it accordingly on the recipient side.

why don't you use Winscp. it has sftp and you don't need to worry about compressing/decompressing anything. Just upload the directory or anything inside it.

milhan: Winscp crashes on me.

zaxxon: Servant Salamander is not free.

thanks for all your help guys, I got it solved now. Discovered scp...

Exactly, I was going to offer scp - as simple as : scp -r folder user@server:path