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At one time i was working for an ISP and when i was working there i used a software to download and copy every thing on a site. I cannot remember what the software was called. At the moment i have a new client that needs all his content moved. thanks to all.

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There are two realistic ways to "download" a whole site, and which to choose depends on your access level. As pointed out, HTTP mirroring tools exist — they can make a copy of publicly reachable pages. For a proper migration, though, a server-side backup (files + database) is far more reliable and preserves dynamic features, logins, and CMS data.

If you can access the origin server, follow this workflow:

  1. Get host access (SSH/SFTP or control panel).
  2. Copy the webroot files (themes, uploads, config). Use rsync or SFTP for a complete, permission-preserving copy.
  3. Export the database (phpMyAdmin or mysqldump).
  4. Import files and DB to the target server, update configuration (DB credentials, base URL), and run a serialized-safe search/replace if the site uses WordPress/Joomla/Drupal.
  5. Test on a staging URL, verify forms, login, scheduled tasks, and SSL, then switch DNS.

Example commands (when SSH access is available):

mysqldump -u dbuser -p database_name > site.sql

rsync -avz -e "ssh -p 22" user@oldhost:/path/to/public_html/ ./public_html/

If you do NOT have server access and must mirror over HTTP, be aware of limits: server-side scripts, shopping carts, and database-driven features will not work after a straight crawl. Respect robots.txt, throttle the crawl to avoid overloading the origin server, and treat the mirrored copy as a static snapshot for design review rather than a full migration.

Final cautions: confirm you have legal permission to copy the content, keep the original as a fallback, update redirects and DNS carefully, and test everything (including email and SSL) before making the new site live. For a CMS migration, server-side backups are almost always the safer route.

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