You can choose the depth you want to checkout, which allows you to specify the depth of recursion into child folders. If you want just a few sections of a large tree, You can checkout the top level folder only, then update selected folders recursively.

To easily select only the items you want for the checkout and force the resulting working copy to keep only those items, click the Choose items... button. This opens a new dialog where you can check all items you want in your working copy and uncheck all the items you don't want. The resulting working copy is then known as a sparse checkout. An update of such a working copy will not fetch the missing files and folders but only update what you already have in your working copy.

If you check out a sparse working copy (i.e., by choosing something other than fully recursive for the checkout depth), you can fetch additional sub-folders later by using the repository browser (Section 4.24, “The Repository Browser”) or the check for modifications dialog (Section 4.7.4, “Local and Remote Status”).

In windows explorer, Right click on the checked out folder, then use TortoiseSVN → Repo-Browser to bring up the repository browser. Find the sub-folder you would like to add to your working copy, then use Context Menu → Update item to revision....

In the check for modifications dialog, first click on the button Check repository. The dialog will show all the files and folders which are in the repository but which you have not checked out as remotely added. Right click on the folder(s) you would like to add to your working copy, then use Context menu → Update.

This feature is very useful when you only want to checkout parts of a large tree, but you want the convenience of updating a single working copy. Suppose you have a large tree which has sub-folders Project01 to Project99, and you only want to checkout Project03, Project25 and Project76/SubProj. Use these steps:

	Changing working copy depth
	Once you have checked out a working copy to a particular depth you can change that depth later to get more or less content using Context menu → Update item to revision.... In that dialog, be sure to check the Make depth sticky checkbox.

	Using an older server
	Pre-1.5 servers do not understand the working copy depth request, so they cannot always deal with requests efficiently. The command will still work, but an older server may send all the data, leaving the client to filter out what is not required, which may mean a lot of network traffic. If possible you should upgrade your server to at least 1.5.