How to copy data to and from the PYNQ board (SD card)

When you log in to the PYNQ board using Visual Studio Code, MobaXterm, or ssh, you log in to another computer with its own storage. All the data of the PYNQ is on the SD card, and not on your laptop.

You may need to copy data to and from the SD card for several reaons:

Starting homework or project. When using the PYNQ in a course, you'll probably be given a starting point for the homework or project. You will need to copy this data to the PYNQ from your laptop.
Submitting homework or project. You may have to submit/send the work that you did on the PYNQ board to the lecturer on Oncourse, CANVAS, or another system. You first need to copy the data from the PYNQ to your laptop.
Making a backup of your data. It is not a bad idea to regularly make a backup of the data on the SD card on your own computer. In that way, if you lose your SD card or if it somehow becomes corrupted then you still have your data, which you can then copy back on a new or reflashed SD card.

With Visual Studio Code

When using Visual Studio Code you can copy files/directories to the PYNQ board by dragging and dropping from your laptop to the Explorer view:
drag to PYNQ
After copying:
drag to laptop
Copying from the PYNQ board to your laptop works similarly.

With MobaXterm

When using MobaXterm you can copy files/directories to the PYNQ board from your laptop by dragging and dropping from your laptop to the Explorer view on the left. Copying from the PYNQ board to your laptop works similarly.
drag to laptop

With ssh (and scp)

If you prefer using a terminal interface then the secure copy (scp) command is used to copy data between your laptop and PYNQ board. See the using a terminal interface (ssh & scp) page for more information.

With git

A more advanced way of copying data to and from the board uses the git version management system. It requires that internet is shared with the PYNQ board. Only use git if it is required by your course, or if you're an expert.