Because Snowflake does not "own" the physical storage of an external stage, you should use the cloud provider's official utilities to download files directly to your local system or server.
Depending on your automation needs, you can choose from the following three primary methods: 1. Use Native Cloud CLI/SDKs (Best for Automation) snowflake download file from external stage
COPY FILES INTO @my_internal_stage FROM @my_external_stage/data/ FILES = ('file_to_download.csv'); Use code with caution. Because Snowflake does not "own" the physical storage
GET @my_internal_stage/file_to_download.csv file://C:\downloads\; Use code with caution. Comparison: Internal vs. External Stages for Downloads Overview of data unloading | Snowflake Documentation snowflake download file from external stage