Download Files from a List of URLs with Wget

#!/bin/bash

URL_FILE="$1"
DOWNLOAD_DIR="${2:-.}." # Default to current directory if not specified

# Validate if the URL file exists
if [ ! -f "$URL_FILE" ]; then
    echo "Error: URL file '$URL_FILE' not found." >&2
    echo "Usage: $0 <url_list_file> [download_directory]"
    exit 1
fi

# Create the download directory if it doesn't exist
mkdir -p "$DOWNLOAD_DIR"

# Change to the download directory
cd "$DOWNLOAD_DIR" || {
    echo "Error: Could not change to directory '$DOWNLOAD_DIR'." >&2
    exit 1
}

echo "Starting downloads from '$URL_FILE' to '$DOWNLOAD_DIR'..."

# Read URLs line by line from the file
while IFS= read -r url;
do
    # Skip empty lines
    if [ -n "$url" ]; then
        echo "Downloading: $url"
        # Use wget to download, -q for quiet output, --no-check-certificate for HTTPS sometimes
        wget -q "$url"
        if [ $? -ne 0 ]; then
            echo "Warning: Failed to download $url" >&2
        fi
    fi
done < "$URL_FILE"

echo "All downloads attempted."