# Downloading histories by curl or wget and link only downloads an HTML file **URL:** \ **Category:** usegalaxy.org support\ **Tags:** history, download\ **Created:** [March 13, 2019, 2:55pm UTC](https://help.galaxyproject.org/t/downloading-histories-by-curl-or-wget-and-link-only-downloads-an-html-file/795 "2019-03-13T14:55:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Ti\_Litt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/cc9497/32.png) [@Ti\_Litt](https://help.galaxyproject.org/u/Ti_Litt)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2019, 2:55pm UTC](https://help.galaxyproject.org/t/downloading-histories-by-curl-or-wget-and-link-only-downloads-an-html-file/795/1 "2019-03-13T14:55:25Z")
Hi team, I’m trying to download my Galaxy histories to free up room for more analysis. However when I select ‘Export History to File’ and get a link to use with wget or curl (On MacOS and I’ve attempted both) it only downloads an HTML file instead of a tar.gz file of the datasets in the history. The file looks like this: ` ==> export_archive?id=XXXXXXXXXX <==` ` Hope that this makes sense, Best, Tim. admin edit: remove archive ID` ---
**Author:** ![jennaj](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/user_avatar/help.galaxyproject.org/jennaj/32/27_2.png) [@jennaj](https://help.galaxyproject.org/u/jennaj)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2019, 2:59pm UTC](https://help.galaxyproject.org/t/downloading-histories-by-curl-or-wget-and-link-only-downloads-an-html-file/795/2 "2019-03-13T14:59:40Z")
Hello, Try downloading the archive from the web page directly. Curl/wget will only work for datasets, with collection datasets requiring that your Galaxy API key is included. Reference FAQ for anyone else reading: \* [Downloading Data](https://galaxyproject.org/support/download-data/) Thanks! ---
**Author:** ![Ti\_Litt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/cc9497/32.png) [@Ti\_Litt](https://help.galaxyproject.org/u/Ti_Litt)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2019, 3:55pm UTC](https://help.galaxyproject.org/t/downloading-histories-by-curl-or-wget-and-link-only-downloads-an-html-file/795/3 "2019-03-13T15:55:34Z")
Hi Jen, I would really like to use wget or another terminal based command since the downloads can sometimes be large and would take too long. Is it not possible to do what I want to do from command line? I don’t understand the API instructions in the FAQ. Best, Tim. ---
**Author:** ![jennaj](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/user_avatar/help.galaxyproject.org/jennaj/32/27_2.png) [@jennaj](https://help.galaxyproject.org/u/jennaj)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2019, 5:29pm UTC](https://help.galaxyproject.org/t/downloading-histories-by-curl-or-wget-and-link-only-downloads-an-html-file/795/4 "2019-03-13T17:29:21Z")
I agree this is a very good idea, and so do the developers, it has just not been implemented yet. Open ticket: [https://github.com/galaxyproject/galaxy/issues/2968](https://github.com/galaxyproject/galaxy/issues/2968) Please feel free to comment there, too. I did link in your post. More community feedback can sometimes help to bump an enhancement idea up in priority. For the API instructions, those are for downloading collection datasets. Under `User > Preferences` you can generate an api key for your account. That is added to the end of the dataset link (copied from the “disc icon”). But this won’t work for entire histories – just datasets. ---
**Author:** ![Ti\_Litt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/cc9497/32.png) [@Ti\_Litt](https://help.galaxyproject.org/u/Ti_Litt)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2019, 5:30pm UTC](https://help.galaxyproject.org/t/downloading-histories-by-curl-or-wget-and-link-only-downloads-an-html-file/795/5 "2019-03-13T17:30:10Z")
Great, thank you for your help Jen 🙂