If I have example.com/dir and dir is basically a folder on the server example.com , how can I download the contents of the folder to my hard drive?
example.com/dir
dir
example.com
Is it a web server and are you downloading it over the net? Then (with shell access) you can try:
$ wget --wait 2 -rkc --no-parent http://example.com/dir
Works with ftp too.