can you download folders when in ftp or is the only way to download more then one file by mget??

On Windows, it's no problem to download entire directories even if they do not yet exist on the machine that will receive those directories.

However, Unix will not automatically create directories, so if you wish to download an entire directory and any subdirectories from another machine using ftp, mget is the command to use, but the machine you're downloading to must already have those same directories created. Probably a security thing...

it depends on your client. with the standard ftp command line client you can download entire directories with the * wild card. eg
get /home/user/directory/*

That works for you?

When I try get /home/usr/directory/* I get directory/*: Bad directory components.

When I try get /usr/home/directory I get /usr/home/directory/: No such file or directory.

you are right thatll teach me to post while half asleep....
1 demerit.

See this thread for some options.

Instead of get /home/usr/directory/* use the mget /home/usr/directory/*. This mget command will ask you for a confirmation for every file to be downloaded to turn the confirmation off use prompt command.

Hope this helps