You can also use rSycnc, which will pull down the differences between your local copy and the remote copy. I use this bash script, which i trigger via NPM scripts:
"deploy:live:sim": "./deploy live",
"deploy:live": "./deploy live go",
"deploy:staging:sim": "./deploy staging",
"deploy:staging": "./deploy staging go",
"content:sync:sim": "./deploy sync",
"content:sync": "./deploy sync go",
Should be self explanatory. The sim commands let you see what will change without actually doing it. Deploy pushes up and content:sync pulls down from just the content folder.
If you are new to rSync, there is a good guide here.