Copying multiple files from remote using rsync over ssh
This is pretty old, but the accepted answer is a bit too strict - multiple files are not necessarily a single argument to rsync. From man rsync
:
ADVANCED USAGE
The syntax for requesting multiple files from a remote host is done by specifying additional remote-host args in the same style as the first, or with the hostname omitted. For
instance, all these work:
rsync -av host:file1 :file2 host:file{3,4} /dest/
rsync -av host::modname/file{1,2} host::modname/file3 /dest/
rsync -av host::modname/file1 ::modname/file{3,4}
so OP's command would be
rsync -Pav -e 'ssh -i sshkey' user@remotemachine:/home/user/file1.zip :/home/user/file2.zip :/home/user/file3.zip .
This is not possible for older versions of rsync, but I think all major distros some with this for several years now.
All remote files should be one argument for rsync. So, just put all remote files in single quotes:
rsync -Pav -e 'ssh -i sshkey' 'user@remotemachine:/home/user/file1.zip file2.zip file3.zip' .
BTW, you can also do this with a Asterisk (the Asterisk will be resolved by the remote shell then):
rsync -Pav -e 'ssh -i sshkey' 'user@remotemachine:/home/user/*.zip' .