How do I download multiple files or an entire folder from Google Colab?

Question

Currently, I can download files as individual files with the command

files.download(file_name)

I also tried uploading them to the drive with the below code snippet but it is uploading them as individual files.

uploaded = drive.CreateFile({'title': file_name})
uploaded.SetContentString('Sample upload file content')
uploaded.Upload()
print('Uploaded file with ID {}'.format(uploaded.get('id')))

How can I download multiple files as a folder to my local computer? Or how can I upload these files as a folder to my google drive?

Answer 1

I have created a zip file:

!zip -r /content/file.zip /content/Folder_To_Zip

Than I have downloded that zip file:

from google.colab import files
files.download("/content/file.zip")

Answer 2

For example, if you have to download log folder:

!zip -r log.zip log/

-r represent recursive

while log.zip is destination zip file and log/ is source folder path

Answer 3

I found that:

!zip -r ./myresultingzippedfolderwithallthefiles.zip ./myoriginalfolderwithallthefiles/

worked for me in colab.

Here . can be your home directory or the directory where your original myoriginalfolderwithallthefiles is and where myresultingzippedfolderwithallthefiles.zip will be created. Change the directories as needed.

Answer 4

You may use code to zip folders and download them using files.

#@title Utility to zip and download a directory
#@markdown Use this method to zip and download a directory. For ex. a TB logs 
#@markdown directory or a checkpoint(s) directory.

from google.colab import files
import os

dir_to_zip = 'dir_name' #@param {type: "string"}
output_filename = 'file.zip' #@param {type: "string"}
delete_dir_after_download = "No"  #@param ['Yes', 'No']

os.system( "zip -r {} {}".format( output_filename , dir_to_zip ) )

if delete_dir_after_download == "Yes":
    os.system( "rm -r {}".format( dir_to_zip ) )

files.download( output_filename )