conan download

$ conan download -h
WARN: Downgrading cache from Conan 2.4.1 to 2.2.3
WARN: Applying downgrade migration 2.4_1-migrate.py
Migration: Successfully updated cppstd_compat.py
usage: conan download [-h] [-v [V]] [-cc CORE_CONF] [-f FORMAT]
                      [--only-recipe] [-p PACKAGE_QUERY] -r REMOTE
                      [-m METADATA] [-l LIST]
                      [pattern]

Download (without installing) a single conan package from a remote server.

It downloads just the package, but not its transitive dependencies, and it will not call
any generate, generators or deployers.
It can download multiple packages if patterns are used, and also works with
queries over the package binaries.

positional arguments:
  pattern               A pattern in the form
                        'pkg/version#revision:package_id#revision', e.g:
                        zlib/1.2.13:* means all binaries for zlib/1.2.13. If
                        revision is not specified, it is assumed latest one.

options:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  -v [V]                Level of detail of the output. Valid options from less
                        verbose to more verbose: -vquiet, -verror, -vwarning,
                        -vnotice, -vstatus, -v or -vverbose, -vv or -vdebug,
                        -vvv or -vtrace
  -cc CORE_CONF, --core-conf CORE_CONF
                        Global configuration for Conan
  -f FORMAT, --format FORMAT
                        Select the output format: json
  --only-recipe         Download only the recipe/s, not the binary packages.
  -p PACKAGE_QUERY, --package-query PACKAGE_QUERY
                        Only download packages matching a specific query. e.g:
                        os=Windows AND (arch=x86 OR compiler=gcc)
  -r REMOTE, --remote REMOTE
                        Download from this specific remote
  -m METADATA, --metadata METADATA
                        Download the metadata matching the pattern, even if
                        the package is already in the cache and not downloaded
  -l LIST, --list LIST  Package list file

Downloads recipe and binaries to the local cache from the specified remote.

Note

Please, be aware that conan download unlike conan install, will not download any of the transitive dependencies of the downloaded package.

The conan download command can download packages to 1 server repository specified by the -r=myremote argument.

It has 2 possible and mutually exclusive inputs:

  • The conan download <pattern> pattern-based matching of recipes, with a pattern similar to the conan list <pattern>.

  • The conan download --list=<pkglist> that will upload the artifacts specified in the pkglist json file

You can use patterns to download specific references just like in other commands like conan list (see the patterns documentation there conan list) or conan upload:

# download latest revision and packages for all openssl versions in foo remote
$ conan download "openssl/*" -r foo

Note

conan download will download only the latest revision by default. If you want to download more revisions other than the latest one you can use wildcards in the revisions part of the reference pattern argument

You may also just download recipes (in this case selecting all the revisions in the pattern, not just the latest one):

# download all recipe revisions for zlib/1.2.13
$ conan download "zlib/1.2.13#*" -r foo --only-recipe

If you just want to download the packages belonging to a specific setting, use the --package-query argument:

$ conan download "zlib/1.2.13#*" -r foo --package-query="os=Linux and arch=x86"

If the --format=json formatter is specified, the result will be a “PackageList”, compatible with other Conan commands, for example the conan upload command, so it is possible to concatenate a download + upload, using the generated json file. See the Packages Lists examples.

Downloading metadata

The metadata files of the recipes and packages are not downloaded by default. It is possible to explicitly retrieve them with the conan download --metadata=xxx argument. The main arguments are the same as above, and Conan will download the specified packages, or skip them if they are already in the cache:

$ conan download pkg/0.1 -r=default --metadata="*"
# will download pgkg/0.1 recipe with all the recipe metadata
# And also all package binaries (latest package revision)
# with all the binaries metadata

If only one or several metadata folders or sets of files are desired, it can also be specified:

$ conan download pkg/0.1 -r=default --metadata="logs/*" --metadata="tests/*"
# Will download only the logs and tests metadata, but not other potential metadata files

For more information see the metadata section.