ssh user@host "mysqldump -h localhost -u mysqluser -pP@$$W3rD databasename | gzip -cf" | gunzip -c > database.sql This command will dump a database on a remote stream to stdout, compress it, stream it to your local machine, decompress it and put it into a file called database.sql.You could even pipe it into mysql on your local machine to restore it immediately. I had to use this recently because t