Simplest way rsync -avz --progress <resource> <username>@<ip>:<destination> Using AWS pem file rsync -avL --progress -e "ssh -i ~/Downloads/AWS/WEB1/Keys/WEB1.pem" \ /var/www/html/eisa/wp-content/uploads/* \ ubuntu@<ip-address>:/var/www/eisa/wp-content/uploads/