pmc-ftp-bulk-download
Bulk download PMC Open Access articles via FTP for large-scale mining
Profile →npx skills add brycewang-stanford/Auto-Empirical-Research-Skills --skill pmc-ftp-bulk-download --agent claude-code
Same command for any agent — swap --agent for codex, cursor, copilot.
Weekly change comes from our own snapshots, not the repository page — it measures attention, not adoption.
# PMC FTP Bulk Download ## Overview The PMC FTP Service provides bulk download access to millions of full-text articles from PubMed Central's Open Access Subset. Unlike the single-article APIs (E-utilities, BioC), the FTP service is designed for large-scale corpus construction — downloading entire collections for text mining, NLP training, systematic reviews, and bibliometric analysis. Free, no authentication required. **Note**: PMC is migrating to AWS-based Cloud Service in August 2026. FTP paths may change; check official docs for updates. ## FTP Access Points ### Connection ```bash # FTP (classic) ftp ftp.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov # Navigate to: /pub/pmc # HTTPS alternative (recommended) # Base: https://ftp.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pub/pmc/ ``` ### Available Datasets | Dataset | Path | Content | Format | |---------|------|---------|--------| | **OA Commercial** | `/pub/pmc/oa_comm/` | CC BY/CC0 articles (commercial use OK) | .tar.gz packages | | **OA Non-Commercial** | `/pub/pmc/oa_noncomm/` | CC BY-NC articles | .tar.gz packages | | **OA Other** | `/pub/pmc/oa_other/` | Other open licenses | .tar.gz packages | | **Author Manuscripts** | `/pub/pmc/manuscript/` | NIH-funded manuscripts | .tar.gz
- Overview
- FTP Access Points
- Connection
- Available Datasets
- File List Index
- Download Strategies
- Strategy 1: Download Specific Articles
- Strategy 2: Bulk Download by License
- Strategy 3: Filtered Download via File List
- PMC ID Cross-Referencing
- Package Contents
- Best Practices
- References
FTP (classic) ftp ftp.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov Navigate to: /pub/pmc HTTPS alternative (recommended) Download the OA file list (CSV, ~200MB) wget https://ftp.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pub/pmc/oa_file_list.csv CSV columns: Download all commercial-use articles (CC BY / CC0) mkdir -p pmc_corpus/commercial cd pmc_corpus/commercial
What does the pmc-ftp-bulk-download skill do?
Bulk download PMC Open Access articles via FTP for large-scale mining
How do I install it?
Run `npx skills add brycewang-stanford/Auto-Empirical-Research-Skills --skill pmc-ftp-bulk-download --agent claude-code` — it drops the skill into your project so the agent can pick it up. Swap the --agent value for codex, cursor or copilot if you use one of those.
Where does this skill come from?
From brycewang-stanford/Auto-Empirical-Research-Skills, a repository with 3,244 stars. We read it straight from the repository tree rather than a submitted listing, so what you see here is what is actually published.
Is a popular skill a good skill?
Not necessarily. Stars measure attention, not adoption — a repository can trend for a week and be abandoned. That is why we show the weekly change from our own snapshots next to the total, instead of a single flattering number.