If your user account has the Read permission level on a collection, the following command allows you to download that collection and all subcollections to your local system:

dm_download_collection [optional parameters] <source-path> <destination-path>

The following table describes each parameter:

ParameterDescription
[-h]If you want to print a usage (help) message for this command, specify this option.
[-t <num-threads>]

If you want to use this parameter, contact NCIDataVault@mail.nih.gov for guidance.

If you want to process the files more efficiently with a smoother download, consider specifying the number of threads (from 1 to 32) that you want the system to use while downloading files from DME. Your network and the server directly impact the way the system downloads files. You can set the number of threads to concurrently download multiple files in the specified collection.

  • For faster processing of your command, use more threads.
  • For faster processing of the system as a whole, use fewer threads.

The default is one thread.

<source-path>A path within DME. Specify the path for the DME collection you want to download.
<destination-path>A path in your local system. Specify where you want the system to create the downloaded file or files. If the destination folder structure you specify does not already exist, DME creates it. 

The following example downloads the Project_Orig collection in DME to a JaneDoe folder. (The command creates a Project_Orig folder.)

dm_download_collection /Example_Archive/PI_Lab1/Project_Orig /NCI/JaneDoe