Expanding on Ruben's answer which uses [HttpClient instead of WebClient][1], you can add as an extension method like this:

```cs
using System.IO;
using System.Net.Http;
using System.Threading.Tasks;

public static class Extensions
{
    public static async Task DownloadFile (this HttpClient client, string address, string fileName) {
        using (var response = await client.GetAsync(address))
        using (var stream = await response.Content.ReadAsStreamAsync())
        using (var file = File.OpenWrite(fileName)) {
            stream.CopyTo(file);
        }
    }
}
```

And then use like this:

```cs
var archivePath = "https://api.github.com/repos/microsoft/winget-pkgs/zipball/";
using (var httpClient = new HttpClient())
{
    await httpClient.DownloadFile(archivePath, "./repo.zip");
}
```

[1]: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/20530152/deciding-between-httpclient-and-webclient

I use HTTP GET that downloads a zip file in a browser, something like  https://example.com/up/DBID/a/rRID/eFID/vVID (not the exact url)

Now, when I try to do the same download in C# code(same GET method as above) for a desktop application, the zip file downloaded is not a valid archive file. When I opened this file in notepad, it was some HTML page.

I think I'm not setting some header correctly. I looked around for examples. I'd found several wrt uploads, but did not see anything for downloads. 

Code:

    HttpWebRequest request = (HttpWebRequest)WebRequest.Create(url);
    request.Method = "GET";
    request.ContentType = "application/zip";
    try
    {
        HttpWebResponse res = (HttpWebResponse)request.GetResponse();
        using (StreamReader sr = new StreamReader(res.GetResponseStream(), System.Text.Encoding.Default))
        {
            StreamWriter oWriter = new StreamWriter(@"D:\Downloads\1.zip");
            oWriter.Write(sr.ReadToEnd());
            oWriter.Close();
        }
        res.Close();
    }
    catch (Exception ex)
    {
    }

How do I download zip file in C#?

According to Issue #1950 [download whole folder/directory from repository][1] on Octokit, this isn't possible given the limitations of the github API.  The best you can do is download the entire repo and parse through the files yourself:

```cs
var archiveBytes = await client.Repository.Content.GetArchive("octokit", "octokit.net", ArchiveFormat.Zipball);
```


[1]: https://github.com/octokit/octokit.net/issues/1950

I'm trying to figure out (in C#) how to download a directory with content (files and folders) in my GitHub repository through the API. Some of the articles mention Octokit.Net so i downloaded this and wrote the following lines:

    var github = new GitHubClient(new ProductHeaderValue("PROJECT"), new InMemoryCredentialStore(new Credentials("xxxtokenxxx")));
        
    var repositories =  github.Repository.GetAllForCurrent().Result;
    
    var repository = repositories.Single(x => x.Name == "MyRepo");

Well i then get the repository and it works but i'm not sure where to go from here?

How can i download Folder1 (look below) containing all files and Folder2 with files in a structure to my local hard disk?

https://github.com/PROJECT/MyRepo/tree/2016-1/Folder1/Folder2

Can anyone help me in the right direction? Your help is greatly appreciated. Thanks