IRS FTP (file transfer protocol) site gone?

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#1
makbo  
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A quick way to download a bunch of pubs, forms, and instructions as PDF files used to be the IRS FTP site, ftp://ftp.irs.gov

Anyone know if this is now gone, maybe with the last major IRS web site overhaul? I can't connect, as I used to be able to for years.

Who would one even ask to find out the official answer?

Bulk download of PDFs through the web browser is going to be difficult, especially if the links aren't all shown on one page.
 

#2
Coddington  
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Try this new link https://www.irs.gov/downloads.

It isn't as easy, but the content is there.
-Brian

Director of Tax Accounting Methods & Credits
SourceAdvisors.com

Opinions my own.
 

#3
makbo  
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Coddington wrote:Try this new link https://www.irs.gov/downloads.

It isn't as easy, but the content is there.


That's what I said -- you can't easily, or even at all, do bulk downloads from a user-friendly web browser page. I've tried Linky in the past but don't know if that add-in is even still around.

[rant]IRS change providing more evidence of continued dumbing down of Americans[end rant]
 

#4
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I can't imagine why FTP/bulk download would be necessary...this is an easy place to view/download whatever pubs you use:
https://www.irs.gov/publications

At one point I was going to write a little script to fetch publications (they're all at https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/pPUB_NUMBER.pdf, leave off the .pdf for html version). But why bother vs just bookmarking the publications page?
 

#5
makbo  
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tb_in_sf wrote:I can't imagine why FTP/bulk download would be necessary...this is an easy place to view/download whatever pubs you use:


You may find this incredible, but sometimes I work on my notebook computer away from my office and I don't want to needlessly and insecurely have to connect to the internet for something that could more easily be at my fingertips, anytime, anywhere. Also, I can find and open up 98% of the pubs or instructions I commonly look for faster when they are on my local disk compared to IRS web site.

Can your imagination use more help? :?: Sometimes I run searches across all or a subset of my collection of tax-related PDFs, and it's better to have one search to rule them all, instead of having to search a little here, search a little there, search a little bit everywhere.

Also, sometimes I need to leave various pubs and instructions open on my Windows desktop for further reference over a period of several days, and doing that with a bunch of PDFs in web browser tabs does not work as well for me as opening a bunch of PDFs in their native application (Adobe Acrobat). I could go into detail as to why if anyone really cares, but one hint, browser bookmarks don't help very much, they become just one more thing to try to keep organized.
Last edited by makbo on 8-Dec-2017 6:19pm, edited 1 time in total.
 

#6
makbo  
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tb_in_sf wrote:https://www.irs.gov/publications

At one point I was going to write a little script to fetch publications (they're all at https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/pPUB_NUMBER.pdf, leave off the .pdf for html version).


First link: if only they could be listed all on one page, instead of across four pages -- and is that all of them?

For your script, you need to have a precise list of pub numbers ahead of time to get them all, where do you get that? What about forms and form instructions?

Here is a link that's almost useful,

https://apps.irs.gov/app/picklist/list/ ... tions.html

but again:

1 - 25 of 2,124 files --- and you can only view at most 200 at a time, so that's over ten pages you have to wade through, repeating the process ten times, instead of one simple command using the old ftp site.

I've been downloading everything through the FTP site every year for ten years now. Like I said, this change represents the ongoing dumbing-down of America, currently undergoing a rapid acceleration -- break things that aren't broken, instead of fixing the things that are.
 

#7
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Makbo, the "I can't imagine" refers to using FTP. Whatever you were doing via FTP you can do via HTTP. I am familiar with the concept of having a local copy of something that is also available over the internet.
 

#8
makbo  
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"Whatever you were doing via FTP you can do via HTTP"

In terms of the bytes that get transferred, yes. In terms of ease and completeness, no.

With FTP, I run one command, ncftp, navigate to the pdf directory, type in one command, mget *, and let it run in the background until complete. No muss, no fuss, I get everything there is to get.

I suppose with the last web site overhaul, or some security audit, someone somewhere looked at the usage and decided it wasn't worth keeping the service running. Heck, maybe I was the only one using it. I really would just like a confirmation that it's gone, and not moved to another name.
 

#9
Coddington  
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I haven't been able to use the ftp site with ease in many years. I used it daily years ago to see what new items had been uploaded. The problem was that Windows' ftp client got wonky and I never searched for a replacement.
-Brian

Director of Tax Accounting Methods & Credits
SourceAdvisors.com

Opinions my own.
 

#10
makbo  
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makbo wrote:https://apps.irs.gov/app/picklist/list/formsPublications.html

1 - 25 of 2,124 files --- and you can only view at most 200 at a time, so that's over ten pages you have to wade through, repeating the process ten times, instead of one simple command using the old ftp site.

I finally took time to find a suitable downloader add-on for Firefox Quantum:

Download Star https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefo ... load-star/

So other than the inconvenience of having to repeat the same process 11 times to get all 2,000+ files, it suits my needs.
 


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