curl(1) curl Manual curl(1)
NAME
curl - transfer a URL
SYNOPSIS
curl [options / URLs]
DESCRIPTION
curl is a tool for transferring data from or to a server. It supports these protocols: DICT, FILE, FTP, FTPS, GOPHER, GO‐
PHERS, HTTP, HTTPS, IMAP, IMAPS, LDAP, LDAPS, MQTT, POP3, POP3S, RTMP, RTMPS, RTSP, SCP, SFTP, SMB, SMBS, SMTP, SMTPS, TEL‐
NET, TFTP, WS and WSS. The command is designed to work without user interaction.
curl offers a busload of useful tricks like proxy support, user authentication, FTP upload, HTTP post, SSL connections,
cookies, file transfer resume and more. As you will see below, the number of features will make your head spin.
curl is powered by libcurl for all transfer-related features. See libcurl(3) for details.
URL
The URL syntax is protocol-dependent. You find a detailed description in RFC 3986.
You can specify multiple URLs or parts of URLs by writing part sets within braces and quoting the URL as in:
"http://site.{one,two,three}.com"
or you can get sequences of alphanumeric series by using [] as in:
"ftp://ftp.example.com/file[1-100].txt"
"ftp://ftp.example.com/file[001-100].txt" (with leading zeros)
"ftp://ftp.example.com/file[a-z].txt"
Nested sequences are not supported, but you can use several ones next to each other:
"http://example.com/archive[1996-1999]/vol[1-4]/part{a,b,c}.html"
You can specify any amount of URLs on the command line. They will be fetched in a sequential manner in the specified order.
You can specify command line options and URLs mixed and in any order on the command line.
You can specify a step counter for the ranges to get every Nth number or letter:
"http://example.com/file[1-100:10].txt"
"http://example.com/file[a-z:2].txt"
When using [] or {} sequences when invoked from a command line prompt, you probably have to put the full URL within double
quotes to avoid the shell from interfering with it. This also goes for other characters treated special, like for example
'&', '?' and '*'.
Provide the IPv6 zone index in the URL with an escaped percentage sign and the interface name. Like in
"http://[fe80::3%25eth0]/"
If you specify URL without protocol:// prefix, curl will attempt to guess what protocol you might want. It will then default
to HTTP but try other protocols based on often-used host name prefixes. For example, for host names starting with "ftp."
curl will assume you want to speak FTP.
curl will do its best to use what you pass to it as a URL. It is not trying to validate it as a syntactically correct URL by
any means but is fairly liberal with what it accepts.
curl will attempt to re-use connections for multiple file transfers, so that getting many files from the same server will
not do multiple connects / handshakes. This improves speed. Of course this is only done on files specified on a single com‐
mand line and cannot be used between separate curl invocations.
OUTPUT
If not told otherwise, curl writes the received data to stdout. It can be instructed to instead save that data into a local
file, using the -o, --output or -O, --remote-name options. If curl is given multiple URLs to transfer on the command line,
it similarly needs multiple options for where to save them.
curl does not parse or otherwise "understand" the content it gets or writes as output. It does no encoding or decoding, un‐
less explicitly asked to with dedicated command line options.
PROTOCOLS
curl supports numerous protocols, or put in URL terms: schemes. Your particular build may not support them all.
DICT Lets you lookup words using online dictionaries.
FILE Read or write local files. curl does not support accessing file:// URL remotely, but when running on Microsoft Win‐
dows using the native UNC approach will work.
FTP(S) curl supports the File Transfer Protocol with a lot of tweaks and levers. With or without using TLS.
GOPHER(S)
Retrieve files.
HTTP(S)
curl supports HTTP with numerous options and variations. It can speak HTTP version 0.9, 1.0, 1.1, 2 and 3 depending
on build options and the correct command line options.
IMAP(S)
Using the mail reading protocol, curl can "download" emails for you. With or without using TLS.
LDAP(S)
curl can do directory lookups for you, with or without TLS.
MQTT curl supports MQTT version 3. Downloading over MQTT equals "subscribe" to a topic while uploading/posting equals
"publish" on a topic. MQTT over TLS is not supported (yet).
POP3(S)
Downloading from a pop3 server means getting a mail. With or without using TLS.
RTMP(S)
The Realtime Messaging Protocol is primarily used to server streaming media and curl can download it.
RTSP curl supports RTSP 1.0 downloads.
SCP curl supports SSH version 2 scp transfers.
SFTP curl supports SFTP (draft 5) done over SSH version 2.
SMB(S) curl supports SMB version 1 for upload and download.
SMTP(S)
Uploading contents to an SMTP server means sending an email. With or without TLS.
TELNET Telling curl to fetch a telnet URL starts an interactive session where it sends what it reads on stdin and outputs
what the server sends it.
TFTP curl can do TFTP downloads and uploads.
PROGRESS METER
curl normally displays a progress meter during operations, indicating the amount of transferred data, transfer speeds and
estimated time left, etc. The progress meter displays the transfer rate in bytes per second. The suffixes (k, M, G, T, P)
are 1024 based. For example 1k is 1024 bytes. 1M is 1048576 bytes.
curl displays this data to the terminal by default, so if you invoke curl to do an operation and it is about to write data
to the terminal, it disables the progress meter as otherwise it would mess up the output mixing progress meter and response
data.
If you want a progress meter for HTTP POST or PUT requests, you need to redirect the response output to a file, using shell
redirect (>), -o, --output or similar.
This does not apply to FTP upload as that operation does not spit out any response data to the terminal.
If you prefer a progress "bar" instead of the regular meter, -#, --progress-bar is your friend. You can also disable the
progress meter completely with the -s, --silent option.
OPTIONS
Options start with one or two dashes. Many of the options require an additional value next to them.
The short "single-dash" form of the options, -d for example, may be used with or without a space between it and its value,
although a space is a recommended separator. The long "double-dash" form, -d, --data for example, requires a space between
it and its value.
Short version options that do not need any additional values can be used immediately next to each other, like for example
you can specify all the options -O, -L and -v at once as -OLv.
In general, all boolean options are enabled with --option and yet again disabled with --no-option. That is, you use the same
option name but prefix it with "no-". However, in this list we mostly only list and show the --option version of them.
--abstract-unix-socket <path>
(HTTP) Connect through an abstract Unix domain socket, instead of using the network. Note: netstat shows the path of
an abstract socket prefixed with '@', however the <path> argument should not have this leading character.
If --abstract-unix-socket is provided several times, the last set value will be used.
Example:
curl --abstract-unix-socket socketpath https://example.com
See also --unix-socket. Added in 7.53.0.
--alt-svc <file name>
(HTTPS) This option enables the alt-svc parser in curl. If the file name points to an existing alt-svc cache file,
that will be used. After a completed transfer, the cache will be saved to the file name again if it has been modi‐
fied.
Specify a "" file name (zero length) to avoid loading/saving and make curl just handle the cache in memory.
If this option is used several times, curl will load contents from all the files but the last one will be used for
saving.
--alt-svc can be used several times in a command line
Example:
curl --alt-svc svc.txt https://example.com
See also --resolve and --connect-to. Added in 7.64.1.
--anyauth
(HTTP) Tells curl to figure out authentication method by itself, and use the most secure one the remote site claims
to support. This is done by first doing a request and checking the response-headers, thus possibly inducing an extra
network round-trip. This is used instead of setting a specific authentication method, which you can do with --basic,
--digest, --ntlm, and --negotiate.
Using --anyauth is not recommended if you do uploads from stdin, since it may require data to be sent twice and then
the client must be able to rewind. If the need should arise when uploading from stdin, the upload operation will
fail.
Used together with -u, --user.
Providing --anyauth multiple times has no extra effect.
Example:
curl --anyauth --user me:pwd https://example.com
See also --proxy-anyauth, --basic and --digest.
-a, --append
(FTP SFTP) When used in an upload, this makes curl append to the target file instead of overwriting it. If the remote
file does not exist, it will be created. Note that this flag is ignored by some SFTP servers (including OpenSSH).
Providing -a, --append multiple times has no extra effect. Disable it again with --no-append.
Example:
curl --upload-file local --append ftp://example.com/
See also -r, --range and -C, --continue-at.
--aws-sigv4 <provider1[:provider2[:region[:service]]]>
Use AWS V4 signature authentication in the transfer.
The provider argument is a string that is used by the algorithm when creating outgoing authentication headers.
The region argument is a string that points to a geographic area of a resources collection (region-code) when the re‐
gion name is omitted from the endpoint.
The service argument is a string that points to a function provided by a cloud (service-code) when the service name
is omitted from the endpoint.
If --aws-sigv4 is provided several times, the last set value will be used.
Example:
curl --aws-sigv4 "aws:amz:east-2:es" --user "key:secret" https://example.com
See also --basic and -u, --user. Added in 7.75.0.
--basic
(HTTP) Tells curl to use HTTP Basic authentication with the remote host. This is the default and this option is usu‐
ally pointless, unless you use it to override a previously set option that sets a different authentication method
(such as --ntlm, --digest, or --negotiate).
Used together with -u, --user.
Providing --basic multiple times has no extra effect.
Example:
curl -u name:password --basic https://example.com
See also --proxy-basic.
--cacert <file>
(TLS) Tells curl to use the specified certificate file to verify the peer. The file may contain multiple CA certifi‐
cates. The certificate(s) must be in PEM format. Normally curl is built to use a default file for this, so this op‐
tion is typically used to alter that default file.
curl recognizes the environment variable named 'CURL_CA_BUNDLE' if it is set, and uses the given path as a path to a
CA cert bundle. This option overrides that variable.
The windows version of curl will automatically look for a CA certs file named 'curl-ca-bundle.crt', either in the
same directory as curl.exe, or in the Current Working Directory, or in any folder along your PATH.
If curl is built against the NSS SSL library, the NSS PEM PKCS#11 module (libnsspem.so) needs to be available for
this option to work properly.
(iOS and macOS only) If curl is built against Secure Transport, then this option is supported for backward compati‐
bility with other SSL engines, but it should not be set. If the option is not set, then curl will use the certifi‐
cates in the system and user Keychain to verify the peer, which is the preferred method of verifying the peer's cer‐
tificate chain.
(Schannel only) This option is supported for Schannel in Windows 7 or later with libcurl 7.60 or later. This option
is supported for backward compatibility with other SSL engines; instead it is recommended to use Windows' store of
root certificates (the default for Schannel).
If --cacert is provided several times, the last set value will be used.
Example:
curl --cacert CA-file.txt https://example.com
See also --capath and -k, --insecure.
--capath <dir>
(TLS) Tells curl to use the specified certificate directory to verify the peer. Multiple paths can be provided by
separating them with ":" (e.g. "path1:path2:path3"). The certificates must be in PEM format, and if curl is built
against OpenSSL, the directory must have been processed using the c_rehash utility supplied with OpenSSL. Using --ca‐
path can allow OpenSSL-powered curl to make SSL-connections much more efficiently than using --cacert if the --cacert
file contains many CA certificates.
If this option is set, the default capath value will be ignored.
If --capath is provided several times, the last set value will be used.
Example:
curl --capath /local/directory https://example.com
See also --cacert and -k, --insecure.
--cert-status
(TLS) Tells curl to verify the status of the server certificate by using the Certificate Status Request (aka. OCSP
stapling) TLS extension.
If this option is enabled and the server sends an invalid (e.g. expired) response, if the response suggests that the
server certificate has been revoked, or no response at all is received, the verification fails.
This is currently only implemented in the OpenSSL, GnuTLS and NSS backends.
Providing --cert-status multiple times has no extra effect. Disable it again with --no-cert-status.
Example:
curl --cert-status https://example.com
See also --pinnedpubkey. Added in 7.41.0.
--cert-type <type>
(TLS) Tells curl what type the provided client certificate is using. PEM, DER, ENG and P12 are recognized types.
The default type depends on the TLS backend and is usually PEM, however for Secure Transport and Schannel it is P12.
If -E, --cert is a pkcs11: URI then ENG is the default type.
If --cert-type is provided several times, the last set value will be used.
Example:
curl --cert-type PEM --cert file https://example.com
See also -E, --cert, --key and --key-type.
-E, --cert <certificate[:password]>
(TLS) Tells curl to use the specified client certificate file when getting a file with HTTPS, FTPS or another SSL-
based protocol. The certificate must be in PKCS#12 format if using Secure Transport, or PEM format if using any other
engine. If the optional password is not specified, it will be queried for on the terminal. Note that this option as‐
sumes a certificate file that is the private key and the client certificate concatenated. See -E, --cert and --key to
specify them independently.
In the <certificate> portion of the argument, you must escape the character ":" as "\:" so that it is not recognized
as the password delimiter. Similarly, you must escape the character "\" as "\\" so that it is not recognized as an
escape character.
If curl is built against the NSS SSL library then this option can tell curl the nickname of the certificate to use
within the NSS database defined by the environment variable SSL_DIR (or by default /etc/pki/nssdb). If the NSS PEM
PKCS#11 module (libnsspem.so) is available then PEM files may be loaded.
If you provide a path relative to the current directory, you must prefix the path with "./" in order to avoid confu‐
sion with an NSS database nickname.
If curl is built against OpenSSL library, and the engine pkcs11 is available, then a PKCS#11 URI (RFC 7512) can be
used to specify a certificate located in a PKCS#11 device. A string beginning with "pkcs11:" will be interpreted as a
PKCS#11 URI. If a PKCS#11 URI is provided, then the --engine option will be set as "pkcs11" if none was provided and
the --cert-type option will be set as "ENG" if none was provided.
(iOS and macOS only) If curl is built against Secure Transport, then the certificate string can either be the name of
a certificate/private key in the system or user keychain, or the path to a PKCS#12-encoded certificate and private
key. If you want to use a file from the current directory, please precede it with "./" prefix, in order to avoid con‐
fusion with a nickname.
(Schannel only) Client certificates must be specified by a path expression to a certificate store. (Loading PFX is
not supported; you can import it to a store first). You can use "<store location>\<store name>\<thumbprint>" to refer
to a certificate in the system certificates store, for example, "Curren‐
tUser\MY\934a7ac6f8a5d579285a74fa61e19f23ddfe8d7a". Thumbprint is usually a SHA-1 hex string which you can see in
certificate details. Following store locations are supported: CurrentUser, LocalMachine, CurrentService, Services,
CurrentUserGroupPolicy, LocalMachineGroupPolicy, LocalMachineEnterprise.
If -E, --cert is provided several times, the last set value will be used.
Example:
curl --cert certfile --key keyfile https://example.com
See also --cert-type, --key and --key-type.
--ciphers <list of ciphers>
(TLS) Specifies which ciphers to use in the connection. The list of ciphers must specify valid ciphers. Read up on
SSL cipher list details on this URL:
https://curl.se/docs/ssl-ciphers.html
If --ciphers is provided several times, the last set value will be used.
Example:
curl --ciphers ECDHE-ECDSA-AES256-CCM8 https://example.com
See also --tlsv1.3.
--compressed-ssh
(SCP SFTP) Enables built-in SSH compression. This is a request, not an order; the server may or may not do it.
Providing --compressed-ssh multiple times has no extra effect. Disable it again with --no-compressed-ssh.
Example:
curl --compressed-ssh sftp://example.com/
See also --compressed. Added in 7.56.0.
--compressed
(HTTP) Request a compressed response using one of the algorithms curl supports, and automatically decompress the con‐
tent. Headers are not modified.
If this option is used and the server sends an unsupported encoding, curl will report an error. This is a request,
not an order; the server may or may not deliver data compressed.
Providing --compressed multiple times has no extra effect. Disable it again with --no-compressed.
Example:
curl --compressed https://example.com
See also --compressed-ssh.
-K, --config <file>
Specify a text file to read curl arguments from. The command line arguments found in the text file will be used as if
they were provided on the command line.
Options and their parameters must be specified on the same line in the file, separated by whitespace, colon, or the
equals sign. Long option names can optionally be given in the config file without the initial double dashes and if
so, the colon or equals characters can be used as separators. If the option is specified with one or two dashes,
there can be no colon or equals character between the option and its parameter.
If the parameter contains whitespace (or starts with : or =), the parameter must be enclosed within quotes. Within
double quotes, the following escape sequences are available: \\, \", \t, \n, \r and \v. A backslash preceding any
other letter is ignored.
If the first column of a config line is a '#' character, the rest of the line will be treated as a comment.
Only write one option per physical line in the config file.
Specify the filename to -K, --config as '-' to make curl read the file from stdin.
Note that to be able to specify a URL in the config file, you need to specify it using the --url option, and not by
simply writing the URL on its own line. So, it could look similar to this:
url = "https://curl.se/docs/"
# --- Example file ---
# this is a comment
url = "example.com"
output = "curlhere.html"
user-agent = "superagent/1.0"
# and fetch another URL too
url = "example.com/docs/manpage.html"
-O
referer = "http://nowhereatall.example.com/"
# --- End of example file ---
When curl is invoked, it (unless -q, --disable is used) checks for a default config file and uses it if found, even
when -K, --config is used. The default config file is checked for in the following places in this order:
1) "$CURL_HOME/.curlrc"
2) "$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/.curlrc" (Added in 7.73.0)
3) "$HOME/.curlrc"
4) Windows: "%USERPROFILE%\.curlrc"
5) Windows: "%APPDATA%\.curlrc"
6) Windows: "%USERPROFILE%\Application Data\.curlrc"
7) Non-Windows: use getpwuid to find the home directory
8) On Windows, if it finds no .curlrc file in the sequence described above, it checks for one in the same dir the
curl executable is placed.
On Windows two filenames are checked per location: .curlrc and _curlrc, preferring the former. Older versions on Win‐
dows checked for _curlrc only.
-K, --config can be used several times in a command line
Example:
curl --config file.txt https://example.com
See also -q, --disable.
--connect-timeout <fractional seconds>
Maximum time in seconds that you allow curl's connection to take. This only limits the connection phase, so if curl
connects within the given period it will continue - if not it will exit. Since version 7.32.0, this option accepts
decimal values.
The "connection phase" is considered complete when the requested TCP, TLS or QUIC handshakes are done.
The decimal value needs to provided using a dot (.) as decimal separator - not the local version even if it might be
using another separator.
If --connect-timeout is provided several times, the last set value will be used.
Examples:
curl --connect-timeout 20 https://example.com
curl --connect-timeout 3.14 https://example.com
See also -m, --max-time.
--connect-to <HOST1:PORT1:HOST2:PORT2>
For a request to the given HOST1:PORT1 pair, connect to HOST2:PORT2 instead. This option is suitable to direct re‐
quests at a specific server, e.g. at a specific cluster node in a cluster of servers. This option is only used to es‐
tablish the network connection. It does NOT affect the hostname/port that is used for TLS/SSL (e.g. SNI, certificate
verification) or for the application protocols. "HOST1" and "PORT1" may be the empty string, meaning "any host/port".
"HOST2" and "PORT2" may also be the empty string, meaning "use the request's original host/port".
A "host" specified to this option is compared as a string, so it needs to match the name used in request URL. It can
be either numerical such as "127.0.0.1" or the full host name such as "example.org".
--connect-to can be used several times in a command line
Example:
curl --connect-to example.com:443:example.net:8443 https://example.com
See also --resolve and -H, --header. Added in 7.49.0.
-C, --continue-at <offset>
Continue/Resume a previous file transfer at the given offset. The given offset is the exact number of bytes that will
be skipped, counting from the beginning of the source file before it is transferred to the destination. If used with
uploads, the FTP server command SIZE will not be used by curl.
Use "-C -" to tell curl to automatically find out where/how to resume the transfer. It then uses the given output/in‐
put files to figure that out.
If -C, --continue-at is provided several times, the last set value will be used.
Examples:
curl -C - https://example.com
curl -C 400 https://example.com
See also -r, --range.
-c, --cookie-jar <filename>
(HTTP) Specify to which file you want curl to write all cookies after a completed operation. Curl writes all cookies
from its in-memory cookie storage to the given file at the end of operations. If no cookies are known, no data will
be written. The file will be written using the Netscape cookie file format. If you set the file name to a single
dash, "-", the cookies will be written to stdout.
This command line option will activate the cookie engine that makes curl record and use cookies. Another way to acti‐
vate it is to use the -b, --cookie option.
If the cookie jar cannot be created or written to, the whole curl operation will not fail or even report an error
clearly. Using -v, --verbose will get a warning displayed, but that is the only visible feedback you get about this
possibly lethal situation.
If -c, --cookie-jar is provided several times, the last set value will be used.
Examples:
curl -c store-here.txt https://example.com
curl -c store-here.txt -b read-these https://example.com
See also -b, --cookie.
-b, --cookie <data|filename>
(HTTP) Pass the data to the HTTP server in the Cookie header. It is supposedly the data previously received from the
server in a "Set-Cookie:" line. The data should be in the format "NAME1=VALUE1; NAME2=VALUE2". This makes curl use
the cookie header with this content explicitly in all outgoing request(s). If multiple requests are done due to au‐
thentication, followed redirects or similar, they will all get this cookie passed on.
If no '=' symbol is used in the argument, it is instead treated as a filename to read previously stored cookie from.
This option also activates the cookie engine which will make curl record incoming cookies, which may be handy if you
are using this in combination with the -L, --location option or do multiple URL transfers on the same invoke. If the
file name is exactly a minus ("-"), curl will instead read the contents from stdin.
The file format of the file to read cookies from should be plain HTTP headers (Set-Cookie style) or the Net‐
scape/Mozilla cookie file format.
The file specified with -b, --cookie is only used as input. No cookies will be written to the file. To store cookies,
use the -c, --cookie-jar option.
If you use the Set-Cookie file format and do not specify a domain then the cookie is not sent since the domain will
never match. To address this, set a domain in Set-Cookie line (doing that will include sub-domains) or preferably:
use the Netscape format.
Users often want to both read cookies from a file and write updated cookies back to a file, so using both -b,
--cookie and -c, --cookie-jar in the same command line is common.
-b, --cookie can be used several times in a command line
Examples:
curl -b cookiefile https://example.com
curl -b cookiefile -c cookiefile https://example.com
See also -c, --cookie-jar and -j, --junk-session-cookies.
--create-dirs
When used in conjunction with the -o, --output option, curl will create the necessary local directory hierarchy as
needed. This option creates the directories mentioned with the -o, --output option, nothing else. If the -o, --output
file name uses no directory, or if the directories it mentions already exist, no directories will be created.
Created dirs are made with mode 0750 on unix style file systems.
To create remote directories when using FTP or SFTP, try --ftp-create-dirs.
Providing --create-dirs multiple times has no extra effect. Disable it again with --no-create-dirs.
Example:
curl --create-dirs --output local/dir/file https://example.com
See also --ftp-create-dirs and --output-dir.
--create-file-mode <mode>
(SFTP SCP FILE) When curl is used to create files remotely using one of the supported protocols, this option allows
the user to set which 'mode' to set on the file at creation time, instead of the default 0644.
This option takes an octal number as argument.
If --create-file-mode is provided several times, the last set value will be used.
Example:
curl --create-file-mode 0777 -T localfile sftp://example.com/new
See also --ftp-create-dirs. Added in 7.75.0.
--crlf (FTP SMTP) Convert LF to CRLF in upload. Useful for MVS (OS/390).
(SMTP added in 7.40.0)
Providing --crlf multiple times has no extra effect. Disable it again with --no-crlf.
Example:
curl --crlf -T file ftp://example.com/
See also -B, --use-ascii.
--crlfile <file>
(TLS) Provide a file using PEM format with a Certificate Revocation List that may specify peer certificates that are
to be considered revoked.
If --crlfile is provided several times, the last set value will be used.
Example:
curl --crlfile rejects.txt https://example.com
See also --cacert and --capath.
--curves <algorithm list>
(TLS) Tells curl to request specific curves to use during SSL session establishment according to RFC 8422, 5.1. Mul‐
tiple algorithms can be provided by separating them with ":" (e.g. "X25519:P-521"). The parameter is available
identically in the "openssl s_client/s_server" utilities.
--curves allows a OpenSSL powered curl to make SSL-connections with exactly the (EC) curve requested by the client,
avoiding nontransparent client/server negotiations.
If this option is set, the default curves list built into openssl will be ignored.
If --curves is provided several times, the last set value will be used.
Example:
curl --curves X25519 https://example.com
See also --ciphers. Added in 7.73.0.
--data-ascii <data>
(HTTP) This is just an alias for -d, --data.
--data-ascii can be used several times in a command line
Example:
curl --data-ascii @file https://example.com
See also --data-binary, --data-raw and --data-urlencode.
--data-binary <data>
(HTTP) This posts data exactly as specified with no extra processing whatsoever.
If you start the data with the letter @, the rest should be a filename. Data is posted in a similar manner as -d,
--data does, except that newlines and carriage returns are preserved and conversions are never done.
Like -d, --data the default content-type sent to the server is application/x-www-form-urlencoded. If you want the
data to be treated as arbitrary binary data by the server then set the content-type to octet-stream: -H "Content-
Type: application/octet-stream".
If this option is used several times, the ones following the first will append data as described in -d, --data.
--data-binary can be used several times in a command line
Example:
curl --data-binary @filename https://example.com
See also --data-ascii.
--data-raw <data>
(HTTP) This posts data similarly to -d, --data but without the special interpretation of the @ character.
--data-raw can be used several times in a command line
Examples:
curl --data-raw "hello" https://example.com
curl --data-raw "@at@at@" https://example.com
See also -d, --data. Added in 7.43.0.
--data-urlencode <data>
(HTTP) This posts data, similar to the other -d, --data options with the exception that this performs URL-encoding.
To be CGI-compliant, the <data> part should begin with a name followed by a separator and a content specification.
The <data> part can be passed to curl using one of the following syntaxes:
content
This will make curl URL-encode the content and pass that on. Just be careful so that the content does not con‐
tain any = or @ symbols, as that will then make the syntax match one of the other cases below!
=content
This will make curl URL-encode the content and pass that on. The preceding = symbol is not included in the
data.
name=content
This will make curl URL-encode the content part and pass that on. Note that the name part is expected to be
URL-encoded already.
@filename
This will make curl load data from the given file (including any newlines), URL-encode that data and pass it
on in the POST.
name@filename
This will make curl load data from the given file (including any newlines), URL-encode that data and pass it
on in the POST. The name part gets an equal sign appended, resulting in name=urlencoded-file-content. Note
that the name is expected to be URL-encoded already.
--data-urlencode can be used several times in a command line
Examples:
curl --data-urlencode name=val https://example.com
curl --data-urlencode =encodethis https://example.com
curl --data-urlencode name@file https://example.com
curl --data-urlencode @fileonly https://example.com
See also -d, --data and --data-raw.
-d, --data <data>
(HTTP MQTT) Sends the specified data in a POST request to the HTTP server, in the same way that a browser does when a
user has filled in an HTML form and presses the submit button. This will cause curl to pass the data to the server
using the content-type application/x-www-form-urlencoded. Compare to -F, --form.
--data-raw is almost the same but does not have a special interpretation of the @ character. To post data purely bi‐
nary, you should instead use the --data-binary option. To URL-encode the value of a form field you may use --data-ur‐
lencode.
If any of these options is used more than once on the same command line, the data pieces specified will be merged
with a separating &-symbol. Thus, using '-d name=daniel -d skill=lousy' would generate a post chunk that looks like
'name=daniel&skill=lousy'.
If you start the data with the letter @, the rest should be a file name to read the data from, or - if you want curl
to read the data from stdin. Posting data from a file named 'foobar' would thus be done with -d, --data @foobar. When
-d, --data is told to read from a file like that, carriage returns and newlines will be stripped out. If you do not
want the @ character to have a special interpretation use --data-raw instead.
-d, --data can be used several times in a command line
Examples:
curl -d "name=curl" https://example.com
curl -d "name=curl" -d "tool=cmdline" https://example.com
curl -d @filename https://example.com
See also --data-binary, --data-urlencode and --data-raw. This option is mutually exclusive to -F, --form and -I,
--head and -T, --upload-file.
--delegation <LEVEL>
(GSS/kerberos) Set LEVEL to tell the server what it is allowed to delegate when it comes to user credentials.
none Do not allow any delegation.
policy Delegates if and only if the OK-AS-DELEGATE flag is set in the Kerberos service ticket, which is a matter of
realm policy.
always Unconditionally allow the server to delegate.
If --delegation is provided several times, the last set value will be used.
Example:
curl --delegation "none" https://example.com
See also -k, --insecure and --ssl.
--digest
(HTTP) Enables HTTP Digest authentication. This is an authentication scheme that prevents the password from being
sent over the wire in clear text. Use this in combination with the normal -u, --user option to set user name and
password.
Providing --digest multiple times has no extra effect. Disable it again with --no-digest.
Example:
curl -u name:password --digest https://example.com
See also -u, --user, --proxy-digest and --anyauth. This option is mutually exclusive to --basic and --ntlm and --ne‐
gotiate.
--disable-eprt
(FTP) Tell curl to disable the use of the EPRT and LPRT commands when doing active FTP transfers. Curl will normally
always first attempt to use EPRT, then LPRT before using PORT, but with this option, it will use PORT right away.
EPRT and LPRT are extensions to the original FTP protocol, and may not work on all servers, but they enable more
functionality in a better way than the traditional PORT command.
--eprt can be used to explicitly enable EPRT again and --no-eprt is an alias for --disable-eprt.
If the server is accessed using IPv6, this option will have no effect as EPRT is necessary then.
Disabling EPRT only changes the active behavior. If you want to switch to passive mode you need to not use -P, --ftp-
port or force it with --ftp-pasv.
Providing --disable-eprt multiple times has no extra effect. Disable it again with --no-disable-eprt.
Example:
curl --disable-eprt ftp://example.com/
See also --disable-epsv and -P, --ftp-port.
--disable-epsv
(FTP) Tell curl to disable the use of the EPSV command when doing passive FTP transfers. Curl will normally always
first attempt to use EPSV before PASV, but with this option, it will not try using EPSV.
--epsv can be used to explicitly enable EPSV again and --no-epsv is an alias for --disable-epsv.
If the server is an IPv6 host, this option will have no effect as EPSV is necessary then.
Disabling EPSV only changes the passive behavior. If you want to switch to active mode you need to use -P, --ftp-
port.
Providing --disable-epsv multiple times has no extra effect. Disable it again with --no-disable-epsv.
Example:
curl --disable-epsv ftp://example.com/
See also --disable-eprt and -P, --ftp-port.
-q, --disable
If used as the first parameter on the command line, the curlrc config file will not be read and used. See the -K,
--config for details on the default config file search path.
Providing -q, --disable multiple times has no extra effect. Disable it again with --no-disable.
Example:
curl -q https://example.com
See also -K, --config.
--disallow-username-in-url
(HTTP) This tells curl to exit if passed a URL containing a username. This is probably most useful when the URL is
being provided at runtime or similar.
Providing --disallow-username-in-url multiple times has no extra effect. Disable it again with --no-disallow-user‐
name-in-url.
Example:
curl --disallow-username-in-url https://example.com
See also --proto. Added in 7.61.0.
--dns-interface <interface>
(DNS) Tell curl to send outgoing DNS requests through <interface>. This option is a counterpart to --interface (which
does not affect DNS). The supplied string must be an interface name (not an address).
If --dns-interface is provided several times, the last set value will be used.
Example:
curl --dns-interface eth0 https://example.com
See also --dns-ipv4-addr and --dns-ipv6-addr. --dns-interface requires that the underlying libcurl was built to sup‐
port c-ares. Added in 7.33.0.
--dns-ipv4-addr <address>
(DNS) Tell curl to bind to <ip-address> when making IPv4 DNS requests, so that the DNS requests originate from this
address. The argument should be a single IPv4 address.
If --dns-ipv4-addr is provided several times, the last set value will be used.
Example:
curl --dns-ipv4-addr 10.1.2.3 https://example.com
See also --dns-interface and --dns-ipv6-addr. --dns-ipv4-addr requires that the underlying libcurl was built to sup‐
port c-ares. Added in 7.33.0.
--dns-ipv6-addr <address>
(DNS) Tell curl to bind to <ip-address> when making IPv6 DNS requests, so that the DNS requests originate from this
address. The argument should be a single IPv6 address.
If --dns-ipv6-addr is provided several times, the last set value will be used.
Example:
curl --dns-ipv6-addr 2a04:4e42::561 https://example.com
See also --dns-interface and --dns-ipv4-addr. --dns-ipv6-addr requires that the underlying libcurl was built to sup‐
port c-ares. Added in 7.33.0.
--dns-servers <addresses>
Set the list of DNS servers to be used instead of the system default. The list of IP addresses should be separated
with commas. Port numbers may also optionally be given as :<port-number> after each IP address.
If --dns-servers is provided several times, the last set value will be used.
Example:
curl --dns-servers 192.168.0.1,192.168.0.2 https://example.com
See also --dns-interface and --dns-ipv4-addr. --dns-servers requires that the underlying libcurl was built to support
c-ares. Added in 7.33.0.
--doh-cert-status
Same as --cert-status but used for DoH (DNS-over-HTTPS).
Providing --doh-cert-status multiple times has no extra effect. Disable it again with --no-doh-cert-status.
Example:
curl --doh-cert-status --doh-url https://doh.example https://example.com
See also --doh-insecure. Added in 7.76.0.
--doh-insecure
Same as -k, --insecure but used for DoH (DNS-over-HTTPS).
Providing --doh-insecure multiple times has no extra effect. Disable it again with --no-doh-insecure.
Example:
curl --doh-insecure --doh-url https://doh.example https://example.com
See also --doh-url. Added in 7.76.0.
--doh-url <URL>
Specifies which DNS-over-HTTPS (DoH) server to use to resolve hostnames, instead of using the default name resolver
mechanism. The URL must be HTTPS.
Some SSL options that you set for your transfer will apply to DoH since the name lookups take place over SSL. How‐
ever, the certificate verification settings are not inherited and can be controlled separately via --doh-insecure and
--doh-cert-status.
This option is unset if an empty string "" is used as the URL. (Added in 7.85.0)
If --doh-url is provided several times, the last set value will be used.
Example:
curl --doh-url https://doh.example https://example.com
See also --doh-insecure. Added in 7.62.0.
-D, --dump-header <filename>
(HTTP FTP) Write the received protocol headers to the specified file. If no headers are received, the use of this op‐
tion will create an empty file.
When used in FTP, the FTP server response lines are considered being "headers" and thus are saved there.
Having multiple transfers in one set of operations (i.e. the URLs in one -:, --next clause), will append them to the
same file, separated by a blank line.
If -D, --dump-header is provided several times, the last set value will be used.
Example:
curl --dump-header store.txt https://example.com
See also -o, --output.
--egd-file <file>
(TLS) Deprecated option. This option is ignored by curl since 7.84.0. Prior to that it only had an effect on curl if
built to use old versions of OpenSSL.
Specify the path name to the Entropy Gathering Daemon socket. The socket is used to seed the random engine for SSL
connections.
If --egd-file is provided several times, the last set value will be used.
Example:
curl --egd-file /random/here https://example.com
See also --random-file.
--engine <name>
(TLS) Select the OpenSSL crypto engine to use for cipher operations. Use --engine list to print a list of build-time
supported engines. Note that not all (and possibly none) of the engines may be available at runtime.
If --engine is provided several times, the last set value will be used.
Example:
curl --engine flavor https://example.com
See also --ciphers and --curves.
--etag-compare <file>
(HTTP) This option makes a conditional HTTP request for the specific ETag read from the given file by sending a cus‐
tom If-None-Match header using the stored ETag.
For correct results, make sure that the specified file contains only a single line with the desired ETag. An empty
file is parsed as an empty ETag.
Use the option --etag-save to first save the ETag from a response, and then use this option to compare against the
saved ETag in a subsequent request.
If --etag-compare is provided several times, the last set value will be used.
Example:
curl --etag-compare etag.txt https://example.com
See also --etag-save and -z, --time-cond. Added in 7.68.0.
--etag-save <file>
(HTTP) This option saves an HTTP ETag to the specified file. An ETag is a caching related header, usually returned in
a response.
If no ETag is sent by the server, an empty file is created.
If --etag-save is provided several times, the last set value will be used.
Example:
curl --etag-save storetag.txt https://example.com
See also --etag-compare. Added in 7.68.0.
--expect100-timeout <seconds>
(HTTP) Maximum time in seconds that you allow curl to wait for a 100-continue response when curl emits an Expects:
100-continue header in its request. By default curl will wait one second. This option accepts decimal values! When
curl stops waiting, it will continue as if the response has been received.
The decimal value needs to provided using a dot (.) as decimal separator - not the local version even if it might be
using another separator.
If --expect100-timeout is provided several times, the last set value will be used.
Example:
curl --expect100-timeout 2.5 -T file https://example.com
See also --connect-timeout. Added in 7.47.0.
--fail-early
Fail and exit on the first detected transfer error.
When curl is used to do multiple transfers on the command line, it will attempt to operate on each given URL, one by
one. By default, it will ignore errors if there are more URLs given and the last URL's success will determine the er‐
ror code curl returns. So early failures will be "hidden" by subsequent successful transfers.
Using this option, curl will instead return an error on the first transfer that fails, independent of the amount of
URLs that are given on the command line. This way, no transfer failures go undetected by scripts and similar.
This option is global and does not need to be specified for each use of -:, --next.
This option does not imply -f, --fail, which causes transfers to fail due to the server's HTTP status code. You can
combine the two options, however note -f, --fail is not global and is therefore contained by -:, --next.
Providing --fail-early multiple times has no extra effect. Disable it again with --no-fail-early.
Example:
curl --fail-early https://example.com https://two.example
See also -f, --fail and --fail-with-body. Added in 7.52.0.
--fail-with-body
(HTTP) Return an error on server errors where the HTTP response code is 400 or greater). In normal cases when an HTTP
server fails to deliver a document, it returns an HTML document stating so (which often also describes why and more).
This flag will still allow curl to output and save that content but also to return error 22.
This is an alternative option to -f, --fail which makes curl fail for the same circumstances but without saving the
content.
Providing --fail-with-body multiple times has no extra effect. Disable it again with --no-fail-with-body.
Example:
curl --fail-with-body https://example.com
See also -f, --fail. This option is mutually exclusive to -f, --fail. Added in 7.76.0.
-f, --fail
(HTTP) Fail fast with no output at all on server errors. This is useful to enable scripts and users to better deal
with failed attempts. In normal cases when an HTTP server fails to deliver a document, it returns an HTML document
stating so (which often also describes why and more). This flag will prevent curl from outputting that and return er‐
ror 22.
This method is not fail-safe and there are occasions where non-successful response codes will slip through, espe‐
cially when authentication is involved (response codes 401 and 407).
Providing -f, --fail multiple times has no extra effect. Disable it again with --no-fail.
Example:
curl --fail https://example.com
See also --fail-with-body. This option is mutually exclusive to --fail-with-body.
--false-start
(TLS) Tells curl to use false start during the TLS handshake. False start is a mode where a TLS client will start
sending application data before verifying the server's Finished message, thus saving a round trip when performing a
full handshake.
This is currently only implemented in the NSS and Secure Transport (on iOS 7.0 or later, or OS X 10.9 or later) back‐
ends.
Providing --false-start multiple times has no extra effect. Disable it again with --no-false-start.
Example:
curl --false-start https://example.com
See also --tcp-fastopen. Added in 7.42.0.
--form-escape
(HTTP) Tells curl to pass on names of multipart form fields and files using backslash-escaping instead of percent-en‐
coding.
If --form-escape is provided several times, the last set value will be used.
Example:
curl --form-escape -F 'field\name=curl' -F 'file=@load"this' https://example.com
See also -F, --form. Added in 7.81.0.
--form-string <name=string>
(HTTP SMTP IMAP) Similar to -F, --form except that the value string for the named parameter is used literally. Lead‐
ing '@' and '<' characters, and the ';type=' string in the value have no special meaning. Use this in preference to
-F, --form if there's any possibility that the string value may accidentally trigger the '@' or '<' features of -F,
--form.
--form-string can be used several times in a command line
Example:
curl --form-string "data" https://example.com
See also -F, --form.
-F, --form <name=content>
(HTTP SMTP IMAP) For HTTP protocol family, this lets curl emulate a filled-in form in which a user has pressed the
submit button. This causes curl to POST data using the Content-Type multipart/form-data according to RFC 2388.
For SMTP and IMAP protocols, this is the means to compose a multipart mail message to transmit.
This enables uploading of binary files etc. To force the 'content' part to be a file, prefix the file name with an @
sign. To just get the content part from a file, prefix the file name with the symbol <. The difference between @ and
< is then that @ makes a file get attached in the post as a file upload, while the < makes a text field and just get
the contents for that text field from a file.
Tell curl to read content from stdin instead of a file by using - as filename. This goes for both @ and < constructs.
When stdin is used, the contents is buffered in memory first by curl to determine its size and allow a possible re‐
send. Defining a part's data from a named non-regular file (such as a named pipe or similar) is unfortunately not
subject to buffering and will be effectively read at transmission time; since the full size is unknown before the
transfer starts, such data is sent as chunks by HTTP and rejected by IMAP.
Example: send an image to an HTTP server, where 'profile' is the name of the form-field to which the file por‐
trait.jpg will be the input:
curl -F profile=@portrait.jpg https://example.com/upload.cgi
Example: send your name and shoe size in two text fields to the server:
curl -F name=John -F shoesize=11 https://example.com/
Example: send your essay in a text field to the server. Send it as a plain text field, but get the contents for it
from a local file:
curl -F "story=<hugefile.txt" https://example.com/
You can also tell curl what Content-Type to use by using 'type=', in a manner similar to:
curl -F "web=@index.html;type=text/html" example.com
or
curl -F "name=daniel;type=text/foo" example.com
You can also explicitly change the name field of a file upload part by setting filename=, like this:
curl -F "file=@localfile;filename=nameinpost" example.com
If filename/path contains ',' or ';', it must be quoted by double-quotes like:
curl -F "file=@\"local,file\";filename=\"name;in;post\"" example.com
or
curl -F 'file=@"local,file";filename="name;in;post"' example.com
Note that if a filename/path is quoted by double-quotes, any double-quote or backslash within the filename must be
escaped by backslash.
Quoting must also be applied to non-file data if it contains semicolons, leading/trailing spaces or leading double
quotes:
curl -F 'colors="red; green; blue";type=text/x-myapp' example.com
You can add custom headers to the field by setting headers=, like
curl -F "submit=OK;headers=\"X-submit-type: OK\"" example.com
or
curl -F "submit=OK;headers=@headerfile" example.com
The headers= keyword may appear more that once and above notes about quoting apply. When headers are read from a
file, Empty lines and lines starting with '#' are comments and ignored; each header can be folded by splitting be‐
tween two words and starting the continuation line with a space; embedded carriage-returns and trailing spaces are
stripped. Here is an example of a header file contents:
# This file contain two headers.
X-header-1: this is a header
# The following header is folded.
X-header-2: this is
another header
To support sending multipart mail messages, the syntax is extended as follows:
- name can be omitted: the equal sign is the first character of the argument,
- if data starts with '(', this signals to start a new multipart: it can be followed by a content type specification.
- a multipart can be terminated with a '=)' argument.
Example: the following command sends an SMTP mime email consisting in an inline part in two alternative formats:
plain text and HTML. It attaches a text file:
curl -F '=(;type=multipart/alternative' \
-F '=plain text message' \
-F '= <body>HTML message</body>;type=text/html' \
-F '=)' -F '=@textfile.txt' ... smtp://example.com
Data can be encoded for transfer using encoder=. Available encodings are binary and 8bit that do nothing else than
adding the corresponding Content-Transfer-Encoding header, 7bit that only rejects 8-bit characters with a transfer
error, quoted-printable and base64 that encodes data according to the corresponding schemes, limiting lines length to
76 characters.
Example: send multipart mail with a quoted-printable text message and a base64 attached file:
curl -F '=text message;encoder=quoted-printable' \
-F '=@localfile;encoder=base64' ... smtp://example.com
See further examples and details in the MANUAL.
-F, --form can be used several times in a command line
Example:
curl --form "name=curl" --form "file=@loadthis" https://example.com
See also -d, --data, --form-string and --form-escape. This option is mutually exclusive to -d, --data and -I, --head
and -T, --upload-file.
--ftp-account <data>
(FTP) When an FTP server asks for "account data" after user name and password has been provided, this data is sent
off using the ACCT command.
If --ftp-account is provided several times, the last set value will be used.
Example:
curl --ftp-account "mr.robot" ftp://example.com/
See also -u, --user.
--ftp-alternative-to-user <command>
(FTP) If authenticating with the USER and PASS commands fails, send this command. When connecting to Tumbleweed's
Secure Transport server over FTPS using a client certificate, using "SITE AUTH" will tell the server to retrieve the
username from the certificate.
If --ftp-alternative-to-user is provided several times, the last set value will be used.
Example:
curl --ftp-alternative-to-user "U53r" ftp://example.com
See also --ftp-account and -u, --user.
--ftp-create-dirs
(FTP SFTP) When an FTP or SFTP URL/operation uses a path that does not currently exist on the server, the standard
behavior of curl is to fail. Using this option, curl will instead attempt to create missing directories.
Providing --ftp-create-dirs multiple times has no extra effect. Disable it again with --no-ftp-create-dirs.
Example:
curl --ftp-create-dirs -T file ftp://example.com/remote/path/file
See also --create-dirs.
--ftp-method <method>
(FTP) Control what method curl should use to reach a file on an FTP(S) server. The method argument should be one of
the following alternatives:
multicwd
curl does a single CWD operation for each path part in the given URL. For deep hierarchies this means many
commands. This is how RFC 1738 says it should be done. This is the default but the slowest behavior.
nocwd curl does no CWD at all. curl will do SIZE, RETR, STOR etc and give a full path to the server for all these
commands. This is the fastest behavior.
singlecwd
curl does one CWD with the full target directory and then operates on the file "normally" (like in the multi‐
cwd case). This is somewhat more standards compliant than 'nocwd' but without the full penalty of 'multicwd'.
If --ftp-method is provided several times, the last set value will be used.
Examples:
curl --ftp-method multicwd ftp://example.com/dir1/dir2/file
curl --ftp-method nocwd ftp://example.com/dir1/dir2/file
curl --ftp-method singlecwd ftp://example.com/dir1/dir2/file
See also -l, --list-only.
--ftp-pasv
(FTP) Use passive mode for the data connection. Passive is the internal default behavior, but using this option can
be used to override a previous -P, --ftp-port option.
Reversing an enforced passive really is not doable but you must then instead enforce the correct -P, --ftp-port
again.
Passive mode means that curl will try the EPSV command first and then PASV, unless --disable-epsv is used.
Providing --ftp-pasv multiple times has no extra effect. Disable it again with --no-ftp-pasv.
Example:
curl --ftp-pasv ftp://example.com/
See also --disable-epsv.
-P, --ftp-port <address>
(FTP) Reverses the default initiator/listener roles when connecting with FTP. This option makes curl use active mode.
curl then tells the server to connect back to the client's specified address and port, while passive mode asks the
server to setup an IP address and port for it to connect to. <address> should be one of:
interface
e.g. "eth0" to specify which interface's IP address you want to use (Unix only)
IP address
e.g. "192.168.10.1" to specify the exact IP address
host name
e.g. "my.host.domain" to specify the machine
- make curl pick the same IP address that is already used for the control connection
Disable the use of PORT with --ftp-pasv. Disable the attempt to use the EPRT command instead of PORT by using --disable-
eprt. EPRT is really PORT++.
You can also append ":[start]-[end]" to the right of the address, to tell curl what TCP port range to use. That means you
specify a port range, from a lower to a higher number. A single number works as well, but do note that it increases the risk
of failure since the port may not be available.
If -P, --ftp-port is provided several times, the last set value will be used.
Examples:
curl -P - ftp:/example.com
curl -P eth0 ftp:/example.com
curl -P 192.168.0.2 ftp:/example.com
See also --ftp-pasv and --disable-eprt.
--ftp-pret
(FTP) Tell curl to send a PRET command before PASV (and EPSV). Certain FTP servers, mainly drftpd, require this non-
standard command for directory listings as well as up and downloads in PASV mode.
Providing --ftp-pret multiple times has no extra effect. Disable it again with --no-ftp-pret.
Example:
curl --ftp-pret ftp://example.com/
See also -P, --ftp-port and --ftp-pasv.
--ftp-skip-pasv-ip
(FTP) Tell curl to not use the IP address the server suggests in its response to curl's PASV command when curl con‐
nects the data connection. Instead curl will re-use the same IP address it already uses for the control connection.
Since curl 7.74.0 this option is enabled by default.
This option has no effect if PORT, EPRT or EPSV is used instead of PASV.
Providing --ftp-skip-pasv-ip multiple times has no extra effect. Disable it again with --no-ftp-skip-pasv-ip.
Example:
curl --ftp-skip-pasv-ip ftp://example.com/
See also --ftp-pasv.
--ftp-ssl-ccc-mode <active/passive>
(FTP) Sets the CCC mode. The passive mode will not initiate the shutdown, but instead wait for the server to do it,
and will not reply to the shutdown from the server. The active mode initiates the shutdown and waits for a reply from
the server.
Providing --ftp-ssl-ccc-mode multiple times has no extra effect. Disable it again with --no-ftp-ssl-ccc-mode.
Example:
curl --ftp-ssl-ccc-mode active --ftp-ssl-ccc ftps://example.com/
See also --ftp-ssl-ccc.
--ftp-ssl-ccc
(FTP) Use CCC (Clear Command Channel) Shuts down the SSL/TLS layer after authenticating. The rest of the control
channel communication will be unencrypted. This allows NAT routers to follow the FTP transaction. The default mode is
passive.
Providing --ftp-ssl-ccc multiple times has no extra effect. Disable it again with --no-ftp-ssl-ccc.
Example:
curl --ftp-ssl-ccc ftps://example.com/
See also --ssl and --ftp-ssl-ccc-mode.
--ftp-ssl-control
(FTP) Require SSL/TLS for the FTP login, clear for transfer. Allows secure authentication, but non-encrypted data
transfers for efficiency. Fails the transfer if the server does not support SSL/TLS.
Providing --ftp-ssl-control multiple times has no extra effect. Disable it again with --no-ftp-ssl-control.
Example:
curl --ftp-ssl-control ftp://example.com
See also --ssl.
-G, --get
When used, this option will make all data specified with -d, --data, --data-binary or --data-urlencode to be used in
an HTTP GET request instead of the POST request that otherwise would be used. The data will be appended to the URL
with a '?' separator.
If used in combination with -I, --head, the POST data will instead be appended to the URL with a HEAD request.
Providing -G, --get multiple times has no extra effect. Disable it again with --no-get.
Examples:
curl --get https://example.com
curl --get -d "tool=curl" -d "age=old" https://example.com
curl --get -I -d "tool=curl" https://example.com
See also -d, --data and -X, --request.
-g, --globoff
This option switches off the "URL globbing parser". When you set this option, you can specify URLs that contain the
letters {}[] without having curl itself interpret them. Note that these letters are not normal legal URL contents but
they should be encoded according to the URI standard.
Providing -g, --globoff multiple times has no extra effect. Disable it again with --no-globoff.
Example:
curl -g "https://example.com/{[]}}}}"
See also -K, --config and -q, --disable.
--happy-eyeballs-timeout-ms <milliseconds>
Happy Eyeballs is an algorithm that attempts to connect to both IPv4 and IPv6 addresses for dual-stack hosts, giving
IPv6 a head-start of the specified number of milliseconds. If the IPv6 address cannot be connected to within that
time, then a connection attempt is made to the IPv4 address in parallel. The first connection to be established is
the one that is used.
The range of suggested useful values is limited. Happy Eyeballs RFC 6555 says "It is RECOMMENDED that connection at‐
tempts be paced 150-250 ms apart to balance human factors against network load." libcurl currently defaults to 200
ms. Firefox and Chrome currently default to 300 ms.
If --happy-eyeballs-timeout-ms is provided several times, the last set value will be used.
Example:
curl --happy-eyeballs-timeout-ms 500 https://example.com
See also -m, --max-time and --connect-timeout. Added in 7.59.0.
--haproxy-protocol
(HTTP) Send a HAProxy PROXY protocol v1 header at the beginning of the connection. This is used by some load bal‐
ancers and reverse proxies to indicate the client's true IP address and port.
This option is primarily useful when sending test requests to a service that expects this header.
Providing --haproxy-protocol multiple times has no extra effect. Disable it again with --no-haproxy-protocol.
Example:
curl --haproxy-protocol https://example.com
See also -x, --proxy. Added in 7.60.0.
-I, --head
(HTTP FTP FILE) Fetch the headers only! HTTP-servers feature the command HEAD which this uses to get nothing but the
header of a document. When used on an FTP or FILE file, curl displays the file size and last modification time only.
Providing -I, --head multiple times has no extra effect. Disable it again with --no-head.
Example:
curl -I https://example.com
See also -G, --get, -v, --verbose and --trace-ascii.
-H, --header <header/@file>
(HTTP IMAP SMTP) Extra header to include in information sent. When used within an HTTP request, it is added to the
regular request headers.
For an IMAP or SMTP MIME uploaded mail built with -F, --form options, it is prepended to the resulting MIME document,
effectively including it at the mail global level. It does not affect raw uploaded mails (Added in 7.56.0).
You may specify any number of extra headers. Note that if you should add a custom header that has the same name as
one of the internal ones curl would use, your externally set header will be used instead of the internal one. This
allows you to make even trickier stuff than curl would normally do. You should not replace internally set headers
without knowing perfectly well what you are doing. Remove an internal header by giving a replacement without content
on the right side of the colon, as in: -H "Host:". If you send the custom header with no-value then its header must
be terminated with a semicolon, such as -H "X-Custom-Header;" to send "X-Custom-Header:".
curl will make sure that each header you add/replace is sent with the proper end-of-line marker, you should thus not
add that as a part of the header content: do not add newlines or carriage returns, they will only mess things up for
you.
This option can take an argument in @filename style, which then adds a header for each line in the input file. Using
@- will make curl read the header file from stdin. Added in 7.55.0.
Please note that most anti-spam utilities check the presence and value of several MIME mail headers: these are
"From:", "To:", "Date:" and "Subject:" among others and should be added with this option.
You need --proxy-header to send custom headers intended for an HTTP proxy. Added in 7.37.0.
Passing on a "Transfer-Encoding: chunked" header when doing an HTTP request with a request body, will make curl send
the data using chunked encoding.
WARNING: headers set with this option will be set in all HTTP requests - even after redirects are followed, like when
told with -L, --location. This can lead to the header being sent to other hosts than the original host, so sensitive
headers should be used with caution combined with following redirects.
-H, --header can be used several times in a command line
Examples:
curl -H "X-First-Name: Joe" https://example.com
curl -H "User-Agent: yes-please/2000" https://example.com
curl -H "Host:" https://example.com
curl -H @headers.txt https://example.com
See also -A, --user-agent and -e, --referer.
-h, --help <category>
Usage help. This lists all commands of the <category>. If no arg was provided, curl will display the most important
command line arguments. If the argument "all" was provided, curl will display all options available. If the argu‐
ment "category" was provided, curl will display all categories and their meanings.
Example:
curl --help all
See also -v, --verbose.
--hostpubmd5 <md5>
(SFTP SCP) Pass a string containing 32 hexadecimal digits. The string should be the 128 bit MD5 checksum of the re‐
mote host's public key, curl will refuse the connection with the host unless the md5sums match.
If --hostpubmd5 is provided several times, the last set value will be used.
Example:
curl --hostpubmd5 e5c1c49020640a5ab0f2034854c321a8 sftp://example.com/
See also --hostpubsha256.
--hostpubsha256 <sha256>
(SFTP SCP) Pass a string containing a Base64-encoded SHA256 hash of the remote host's public key. Curl will refuse
the connection with the host unless the hashes match.
This feature requires libcurl to be built with libssh2 and does not work with other SSH backends.
If --hostpubsha256 is provided several times, the last set value will be used.
Example:
curl --hostpubsha256 NDVkMTQxMGQ1ODdmMjQ3MjczYjAyOTY5MmRkMjVmNDQ= sftp://example.com/
See also --hostpubmd5. Added in 7.80.0.
--hsts <file name>
(HTTPS) This option enables HSTS for the transfer. If the file name points to an existing HSTS cache file, that will
be used. After a completed transfer, the cache will be saved to the file name again if it has been modified.
If curl is told to use HTTP:// for a transfer involving a host name that exists in the HSTS cache, it upgrades the
transfer to use HTTPS. Each HSTS cache entry has an individual life time after which the upgrade is no longer per‐
formed.
Specify a "" file name (zero length) to avoid loading/saving and make curl just handle HSTS in memory.
If this option is used several times, curl will load contents from all the files but the last one will be used for
saving.
--hsts can be used several times in a command line
Example:
curl --hsts cache.txt https://example.com
See also --proto. Added in 7.74.0.
--http0.9
(HTTP) Tells curl to be fine with HTTP version 0.9 response.
HTTP/0.9 is a completely headerless response and therefore you can also connect with this to non-HTTP servers and
still get a response since curl will simply transparently downgrade - if allowed.
Since curl 7.66.0, HTTP/0.9 is disabled by default.
Providing --http0.9 multiple times has no extra effect. Disable it again with --no-http0.9.
Example:
curl --http0.9 https://example.com
See also --http1.1, --http2 and --http3. Added in 7.64.0.
-0, --http1.0
(HTTP) Tells curl to use HTTP version 1.0 instead of using its internally preferred HTTP version.
Providing -0, --http1.0 multiple times has no extra effect.
Example:
curl --http1.0 https://example.com
See also --http0.9 and --http1.1. This option is mutually exclusive to --http1.1 and --http2 and --http2-prior-knowl‐
edge and --http3.
--http1.1
(HTTP) Tells curl to use HTTP version 1.1.
Providing --http1.1 multiple times has no extra effect.
Example:
curl --http1.1 https://example.com
See also -0, --http1.0 and --http0.9. This option is mutually exclusive to -0, --http1.0 and --http2 and
--http2-prior-knowledge and --http3. Added in 7.33.0.
--http2-prior-knowledge
(HTTP) Tells curl to issue its non-TLS HTTP requests using HTTP/2 without HTTP/1.1 Upgrade. It requires prior knowl‐
edge that the server supports HTTP/2 straight away. HTTPS requests will still do HTTP/2 the standard way with negoti‐
ated protocol version in the TLS handshake.
Providing --http2-prior-knowledge multiple times has no extra effect. Disable it again with --no-http2-prior-knowl‐
edge.
Example:
curl --http2-prior-knowledge https://example.com
See also --http2 and --http3. --http2-prior-knowledge requires that the underlying libcurl was built to support
HTTP/2. This option is mutually exclusive to --http1.1 and -0, --http1.0 and --http2 and --http3. Added in 7.49.0.
--http2
(HTTP) Tells curl to use HTTP version 2.
For HTTPS, this means curl will attempt to negotiate HTTP/2 in the TLS handshake. curl does this by default.
For HTTP, this means curl will attempt to upgrade the request to HTTP/2 using the Upgrade: request header.
When curl uses HTTP/2 over HTTPS, it does not itself insist on TLS 1.2 or higher even though that is required by the
specification. A user can add this version requirement with --tlsv1.2.
Providing --http2 multiple times has no extra effect.
Example:
curl --http2 https://example.com
See also --http1.1 and --http3. --http2 requires that the underlying libcurl was built to support HTTP/2. This option
is mutually exclusive to --http1.1 and -0, --http1.0 and --http2-prior-knowledge and --http3. Added in 7.33.0.
--http3-only
(HTTP) **WARNING**: this option is experimental. Do not use in production.
Instructs curl to use HTTP/3 to the host in the URL, with no fallback to earlier HTTP versions. HTTP/3 can only be
used for HTTPS and not for HTTP URLs. For HTTP, this option will trigger an error.
This option allows a user to avoid using the Alt-Svc method of upgrading to HTTP/3 when you know that the target
speaks HTTP/3 on the given host and port.
This option will make curl fail if a QUIC connection cannot be established, it will not attempt any other HTTP ver‐
sion on its own. Use --http3 for similar functionality with a fallback.
Providing --http3-only multiple times has no extra effect.
Example:
curl --http3-only https://example.com
See also --http1.1, --http2 and --http3. --http3-only requires that the underlying libcurl was built to support
HTTP/3. This option is mutually exclusive to --http1.1 and -0, --http1.0 and --http2 and --http2-prior-knowledge and
--http3. Added in 7.88.0.
--http3
(HTTP) **WARNING**: this option is experimental. Do not use in production.
Tells curl to try HTTP/3 to the host in the URL, but fallback to earlier HTTP versions if the HTTP/3 connection es‐
tablishment fails. HTTP/3 is only available for HTTPS and not for HTTP URLs.
This option allows a user to avoid using the Alt-Svc method of upgrading to HTTP/3 when you know that the target
speaks HTTP/3 on the given host and port.
When asked to use HTTP/3, curl will issue a separate attempt to use older HTTP versions with a slight delay, so if
the HTTP/3 transfer fails or is very slow, curl will still try to proceed with an older HTTP version.
Use --http3-only for similar functionality without a fallback.
Providing --http3 multiple times has no extra effect.
Example:
curl --http3 https://example.com
See also --http1.1 and --http2. --http3 requires that the underlying libcurl was built to support HTTP/3. This option
is mutually exclusive to --http1.1 and -0, --http1.0 and --http2 and --http2-prior-knowledge and --http3-only. Added
in 7.66.0.
--ignore-content-length
(FTP HTTP) For HTTP, Ignore the Content-Length header. This is particularly useful for servers running Apache 1.x,
which will report incorrect Content-Length for files larger than 2 gigabytes.
For FTP (since 7.46.0), skip the RETR command to figure out the size before downloading a file.
This option does not work for HTTP if libcurl was built to use hyper.
Providing --ignore-content-length multiple times has no extra effect. Disable it again with --no-ignore-content-
length.
Example:
curl --ignore-content-length https://example.com
See also --ftp-skip-pasv-ip.
-i, --include
Include the HTTP response headers in the output. The HTTP response headers can include things like server name, cook‐
ies, date of the document, HTTP version and more...
To view the request headers, consider the -v, --verbose option.
Providing -i, --include multiple times has no extra effect. Disable it again with --no-include.
Example:
curl -i https://example.com
See also -v, --verbose.
-k, --insecure
(TLS SFTP SCP) By default, every secure connection curl makes is verified to be secure before the transfer takes
place. This option makes curl skip the verification step and proceed without checking.
When this option is not used for protocols using TLS, curl verifies the server's TLS certificate before it continues:
that the certificate contains the right name which matches the host name used in the URL and that the certificate has
been signed by a CA certificate present in the cert store. See this online resource for further details:
https://curl.se/docs/sslcerts.html
For SFTP and SCP, this option makes curl skip the known_hosts verification. known_hosts is a file normally stored in
the user's home directory in the ".ssh" subdirectory, which contains host names and their public keys.
WARNING: using this option makes the transfer insecure.
When curl uses secure protocols it trusts responses and allows for example HSTS and Alt-Svc information to be stored
and used subsequently. Using -k, --insecure can make curl trust and use such information from malicious servers.
Providing -k, --insecure multiple times has no extra effect. Disable it again with --no-insecure.
Example:
curl --insecure https://example.com
See also --proxy-insecure, --cacert and --capath.
--interface <name>
Perform an operation using a specified interface. You can enter interface name, IP address or host name. An example
could look like:
curl --interface eth0:1 https://www.example.com/
On Linux it can be used to specify a VRF, but the binary needs to either have CAP_NET_RAW or to be run as root. More
information about Linux VRF: https://www.kernel.org/doc/Documentation/networking/vrf.txt
If --interface is provided several times, the last set value will be used.
Example:
curl --interface eth0 https://example.com
See also --dns-interface.
-4, --ipv4
This option tells curl to use IPv4 addresses only, and not for example try IPv6.
Providing -4, --ipv4 multiple times has no extra effect. Disable it again with --no-ipv4.
Example:
curl --ipv4 https://example.com
See also --http1.1 and --http2. This option is mutually exclusive to -6, --ipv6.
-6, --ipv6
This option tells curl to use IPv6 addresses only, and not for example try IPv4.
Providing -6, --ipv6 multiple times has no extra effect. Disable it again with --no-ipv6.
Example:
curl --ipv6 https://example.com
See also --http1.1 and --http2. This option is mutually exclusive to -4, --ipv4.
--json <data>
(HTTP) Sends the specified JSON data in a POST request to the HTTP server. --json works as a shortcut for passing on
these three options:
--data [arg]
--header "Content-Type: application/json"
--header "Accept: application/json"
There is no verification that the passed in data is actual JSON or that the syntax is correct.
If you start the data with the letter @, the rest should be a file name to read the data from, or a single dash (-)
if you want curl to read the data from stdin. Posting data from a file named 'foobar' would thus be done with --json
@foobar and to instead read the data from stdin, use --json @-.
If this option is used more than once on the same command line, the additional data pieces will be concatenated to
the previous before sending.
The headers this option sets can be overridden with -H, --header as usual.
--json can be used several times in a command line
Examples:
curl --json '{ "drink": "coffe" }' https://example.com
curl --json '{ "drink":' --json ' "coffe" }' https://example.com
curl --json @prepared https://example.com
curl --json @- https://example.com < json.txt
See also --data-binary and --data-raw. This option is mutually exclusive to -F, --form and -I, --head and -T, --up‐
load-file. Added in 7.82.0.
-j, --junk-session-cookies
(HTTP) When curl is told to read cookies from a given file, this option will make it discard all "session cookies".
This will basically have the same effect as if a new session is started. Typical browsers always discard session
cookies when they are closed down.
Providing -j, --junk-session-cookies multiple times has no extra effect. Disable it again with --no-junk-session-
cookies.
Example:
curl --junk-session-cookies -b cookies.txt https://example.com
See also -b, --cookie and -c, --cookie-jar.
--keepalive-time <seconds>
This option sets the time a connection needs to remain idle before sending keepalive probes and the time between in‐
dividual keepalive probes. It is currently effective on operating systems offering the TCP_KEEPIDLE and TCP_KEEPINTVL
socket options (meaning Linux, recent AIX, HP-UX and more). Keepalives are used by the TCP stack to detect broken
networks on idle connections. The number of missed keepalive probes before declaring the connection down is OS depen‐
dent and is commonly 9 or 10. This option has no effect if --no-keepalive is used.
If unspecified, the option defaults to 60 seconds.
If --keepalive-time is provided several times, the last set value will be used.
Example:
curl --keepalive-time 20 https://example.com
See also --no-keepalive and -m, --max-time.
--key-type <type>
(TLS) Private key file type. Specify which type your --key provided private key is. DER, PEM, and ENG are supported.
If not specified, PEM is assumed.
If --key-type is provided several times, the last set value will be used.
Example:
curl --key-type DER --key here https://example.com
See also --key.
--key <key>
(TLS SSH) Private key file name. Allows you to provide your private key in this separate file. For SSH, if not speci‐
fied, curl tries the following candidates in order: '~/.ssh/id_rsa', '~/.ssh/id_dsa', './id_rsa', './id_dsa'.
If curl is built against OpenSSL library, and the engine pkcs11 is available, then a PKCS#11 URI (RFC 7512) can be
used to specify a private key located in a PKCS#11 device. A string beginning with "pkcs11:" will be interpreted as a
PKCS#11 URI. If a PKCS#11 URI is provided, then the --engine option will be set as "pkcs11" if none was provided and
the --key-type option will be set as "ENG" if none was provided.
If curl is built against Secure Transport or Schannel then this option is ignored for TLS protocols (HTTPS, etc).
Those backends expect the private key to be already present in the keychain or PKCS#12 file containing the certifi‐
cate.
If --key is provided several times, the last set value will be used.
Example:
curl --cert certificate --key here https://example.com
See also --key-type and -E, --cert.
--krb <level>
(FTP) Enable Kerberos authentication and use. The level must be entered and should be one of 'clear', 'safe', 'confi‐
dential', or 'private'. Should you use a level that is not one of these, 'private' will instead be used.
If --krb is provided several times, the last set value will be used.
Example:
curl --krb clear ftp://example.com/
See also --delegation and --ssl. --krb requires that the underlying libcurl was built to support Kerberos.
--libcurl <file>
Append this option to any ordinary curl command line, and you will get libcurl-using C source code written to the
file that does the equivalent of what your command-line operation does!
This option is global and does not need to be specified for each use of -:, --next.
If --libcurl is provided several times, the last set value will be used.
Example:
curl --libcurl client.c https://example.com
See also -v, --verbose.
--limit-rate <speed>
Specify the maximum transfer rate you want curl to use - for both downloads and uploads. This feature is useful if
you have a limited pipe and you would like your transfer not to use your entire bandwidth. To make it slower than it
otherwise would be.
The given speed is measured in bytes/second, unless a suffix is appended. Appending 'k' or 'K' will count the number
as kilobytes, 'm' or 'M' makes it megabytes, while 'g' or 'G' makes it gigabytes. The suffixes (k, M, G, T, P) are
1024 based. For example 1k is 1024. Examples: 200K, 3m and 1G.
The rate limiting logic works on averaging the transfer speed to no more than the set threshold over a period of mul‐
tiple seconds.
If you also use the -Y, --speed-limit option, that option will take precedence and might cripple the rate-limiting
slightly, to help keeping the speed-limit logic working.
If --limit-rate is provided several times, the last set value will be used.
Examples:
curl --limit-rate 100K https://example.com
curl --limit-rate 1000 https://example.com
curl --limit-rate 10M https://example.com
See also --rate, -Y, --speed-limit and -y, --speed-time.
-l, --list-only
(FTP POP3) (FTP) When listing an FTP directory, this switch forces a name-only view. This is especially useful if the
user wants to machine-parse the contents of an FTP directory since the normal directory view does not use a standard
look or format. When used like this, the option causes an NLST command to be sent to the server instead of LIST.
Note: Some FTP servers list only files in their response to NLST; they do not include sub-directories and symbolic
links.
(POP3) When retrieving a specific email from POP3, this switch forces a LIST command to be performed instead of RETR.
This is particularly useful if the user wants to see if a specific message-id exists on the server and what size it
is.
Note: When combined with -X, --request, this option can be used to send a UIDL command instead, so the user may use
the email's unique identifier rather than its message-id to make the request.
Providing -l, --list-only multiple times has no extra effect. Disable it again with --no-list-only.
Example:
curl --list-only ftp://example.com/dir/
See also -Q, --quote and -X, --request.
--local-port <num/range>
Set a preferred single number or range (FROM-TO) of local port numbers to use for the connection(s). Note that port
numbers by nature are a scarce resource that will be busy at times so setting this range to something too narrow
might cause unnecessary connection setup failures.
If --local-port is provided several times, the last set value will be used.
Example:
curl --local-port 1000-3000 https://example.com
See also -g, --globoff.
--location-trusted
(HTTP) Like -L, --location, but will allow sending the name + password to all hosts that the site may redirect to.
This may or may not introduce a security breach if the site redirects you to a site to which you will send your au‐
thentication info (which is plaintext in the case of HTTP Basic authentication).
Providing --location-trusted multiple times has no extra effect. Disable it again with --no-location-trusted.
Example:
curl --location-trusted -u user:password https://example.com
See also -u, --user.
-L, --location
(HTTP) If the server reports that the requested page has moved to a different location (indicated with a Location:
header and a 3XX response code), this option will make curl redo the request on the new place. If used together with
-i, --include or -I, --head, headers from all requested pages will be shown. When authentication is used, curl only
sends its credentials to the initial host. If a redirect takes curl to a different host, it will not be able to in‐
tercept the user+password. See also --location-trusted on how to change this. You can limit the amount of redirects
to follow by using the --max-redirs option.
When curl follows a redirect and if the request is a POST, it will send the following request with a GET if the HTTP
response was 301, 302, or 303. If the response code was any other 3xx code, curl will re-send the following request
using the same unmodified method.
You can tell curl to not change POST requests to GET after a 30x response by using the dedicated options for that:
--post301, --post302 and --post303.
The method set with -X, --request overrides the method curl would otherwise select to use.
Providing -L, --location multiple times has no extra effect. Disable it again with --no-location.
Example:
curl -L https://example.com
See also --resolve and --alt-svc.
--login-options <options>
(IMAP LDAP POP3 SMTP) Specify the login options to use during server authentication.
You can use login options to specify protocol specific options that may be used during authentication. At present
only IMAP, POP3 and SMTP support login options. For more information about login options please see RFC 2384, RFC
5092 and IETF draft draft-earhart-url-smtp-00.txt
If --login-options is provided several times, the last set value will be used.
Example:
curl --login-options 'AUTH=*' imap://example.com
See also -u, --user. Added in 7.34.0.
--mail-auth <address>
(SMTP) Specify a single address. This will be used to specify the authentication address (identity) of a submitted
message that is being relayed to another server.
If --mail-auth is provided several times, the last set value will be used.
Example:
curl --mail-auth user@example.come -T mail smtp://example.com/
See also --mail-rcpt and --mail-from.
--mail-from <address>
(SMTP) Specify a single address that the given mail should get sent from.
If --mail-from is provided several times, the last set value will be used.
Example:
curl --mail-from user@example.com -T mail smtp://example.com/
See also --mail-rcpt and --mail-auth.
--mail-rcpt-allowfails
(SMTP) When sending data to multiple recipients, by default curl will abort SMTP conversation if at least one of the
recipients causes RCPT TO command to return an error.
The default behavior can be changed by passing --mail-rcpt-allowfails command-line option which will make curl ignore
errors and proceed with the remaining valid recipients.
If all recipients trigger RCPT TO failures and this flag is specified, curl will still abort the SMTP conversation
and return the error received from to the last RCPT TO command.
Providing --mail-rcpt-allowfails multiple times has no extra effect. Disable it again with --no-mail-rcpt-allow‐
fails.
Example:
curl --mail-rcpt-allowfails --mail-rcpt dest@example.com smtp://example.com
See also --mail-rcpt. Added in 7.69.0.
--mail-rcpt <address>
(SMTP) Specify a single email address, user name or mailing list name. Repeat this option several times to send to
multiple recipients.
When performing an address verification (VRFY command), the recipient should be specified as the user name or user
name and domain (as per Section 3.5 of RFC5321). (Added in 7.34.0)
When performing a mailing list expand (EXPN command), the recipient should be specified using the mailing list name,
such as "Friends" or "London-Office". (Added in 7.34.0)
--mail-rcpt can be used several times in a command line
Example:
curl --mail-rcpt user@example.net smtp://example.com
See also --mail-rcpt-allowfails.
-M, --manual
Manual. Display the huge help text.
Example:
curl --manual
See also -v, --verbose, --libcurl and --trace.
--max-filesize <bytes>
(FTP HTTP MQTT) Specify the maximum size (in bytes) of a file to download. If the file requested is larger than this
value, the transfer will not start and curl will return with exit code 63.
A size modifier may be used. For example, Appending 'k' or 'K' will count the number as kilobytes, 'm' or 'M' makes
it megabytes, while 'g' or 'G' makes it gigabytes. Examples: 200K, 3m and 1G. (Added in 7.58.0)
NOTE: The file size is not always known prior to download, and for such files this option has no effect even if the
file transfer ends up being larger than this given limit. If --max-filesize is provided several times, the last set
value will be used.
Example:
curl --max-filesize 100K https://example.com
See also --limit-rate.
--max-redirs <num>
(HTTP) Set maximum number of redirections to follow. When -L, --location is used, to prevent curl from following too
many redirects, by default, the limit is set to 50 redirects. Set this option to -1 to make it unlimited.
If --max-redirs is provided several times, the last set value will be used.
Example:
curl --max-redirs 3 --location https://example.com
See also -L, --location.
-m, --max-time <fractional seconds>
Maximum time in seconds that you allow each transfer to take. This is useful for preventing your batch jobs from
hanging for hours due to slow networks or links going down. Since 7.32.0, this option accepts decimal values, but
the actual timeout will decrease in accuracy as the specified timeout increases in decimal precision.
If you enable retrying the transfer (--retry) then the maximum time counter is reset each time the transfer is re‐
tried. You can use --retry-max-time to limit the retry time.
The decimal value needs to provided using a dot (.) as decimal separator - not the local version even if it might be
using another separator.
If -m, --max-time is provided several times, the last set value will be used.
Examples:
curl --max-time 10 https://example.com
curl --max-time 2.92 https://example.com
See also --connect-timeout and --retry-max-time.
--metalink
This option was previously used to specify a metalink resource. Metalink support has been disabled in curl since
7.78.0 for security reasons.
If --metalink is provided several times, the last set value will be used.
Example:
curl --metalink file https://example.com
See also -Z, --parallel.
--negotiate
(HTTP) Enables Negotiate (SPNEGO) authentication.
This option requires a library built with GSS-API or SSPI support. Use -V, --version to see if your curl supports
GSS-API/SSPI or SPNEGO.
When using this option, you must also provide a fake -u, --user option to activate the authentication code properly.
Sending a '-u :' is enough as the user name and password from the -u, --user option are not actually used.
If this option is used several times, only the first one is used.
Providing --negotiate multiple times has no extra effect.
Example:
curl --negotiate -u : https://example.com
See also --basic, --ntlm, --anyauth and --proxy-negotiate.
--netrc-file <filename>
This option is similar to -n, --netrc, except that you provide the path (absolute or relative) to the netrc file that
curl should use. You can only specify one netrc file per invocation.
It will abide by --netrc-optional if specified.
If --netrc-file is provided several times, the last set value will be used.
Example:
curl --netrc-file netrc https://example.com
See also -n, --netrc, -u, --user and -K, --config. This option is mutually exclusive to -n, --netrc.
--netrc-optional
Similar to -n, --netrc, but this option makes the .netrc usage optional and not mandatory as the -n, --netrc option
does.
Providing --netrc-optional multiple times has no extra effect. Disable it again with --no-netrc-optional.
Example:
curl --netrc-optional https://example.com
See also --netrc-file. This option is mutually exclusive to -n, --netrc.
-n, --netrc
Makes curl scan the .netrc (_netrc on Windows) file in the user's home directory for login name and password. This is
typically used for FTP on Unix. If used with HTTP, curl will enable user authentication. See netrc(5) and ftp(1) for
details on the file format. Curl will not complain if that file does not have the right permissions (it should be
neither world- nor group-readable). The environment variable "HOME" is used to find the home directory.
A quick and simple example of how to setup a .netrc to allow curl to FTP to the machine host.domain.com with user
name 'myself' and password 'secret' could look similar to:
machine host.domain.com
login myself
password secret
Providing -n, --netrc multiple times has no extra effect. Disable it again with --no-netrc.
Example:
curl --netrc https://example.com
See also --netrc-file, -K, --config and -u, --user. This option is mutually exclusive to --netrc-file and --netrc-op‐
tional.
-:, --next
Tells curl to use a separate operation for the following URL and associated options. This allows you to send several
URL requests, each with their own specific options, for example, such as different user names or custom requests for
each.
-:, --next will reset all local options and only global ones will have their values survive over to the operation
following the -:, --next instruction. Global options include -v, --verbose, --trace, --trace-ascii and --fail-early.
For example, you can do both a GET and a POST in a single command line:
curl www1.example.com --next -d postthis www2.example.com
-:, --next can be used several times in a command line
Examples:
curl https://example.com --next -d postthis www2.example.com
curl -I https://example.com --next https://example.net/
See also -Z, --parallel and -K, --config. Added in 7.36.0.
--no-alpn
(HTTPS) Disable the ALPN TLS extension. ALPN is enabled by default if libcurl was built with an SSL library that sup‐
ports ALPN. ALPN is used by a libcurl that supports HTTP/2 to negotiate HTTP/2 support with the server during https
sessions.
Providing --no-alpn multiple times has no extra effect. Disable it again with --alpn.
Example:
curl --no-alpn https://example.com
See also --no-npn and --http2. --no-alpn requires that the underlying libcurl was built to support TLS. Added in
7.36.0.
-N, --no-buffer
Disables the buffering of the output stream. In normal work situations, curl will use a standard buffered output
stream that will have the effect that it will output the data in chunks, not necessarily exactly when the data ar‐
rives. Using this option will disable that buffering.
Providing -N, --no-buffer multiple times has no extra effect. Disable it again with --buffer.
Example:
curl --no-buffer https://example.com
See also -#, --progress-bar.
--no-clobber
When used in conjunction with the -o, --output, -J, --remote-header-name, -O, --remote-name, or --remote-name-all op‐
tions, curl avoids overwriting files that already exist. Instead, a dot and a number gets appended to the name of the
file that would be created, up to filename.100 after which it will not create any file.
Note that this is the negated option name documented. You can thus use --clobber to enforce the clobbering, even if
-J, --remote-header-name is specified.
Providing --no-clobber multiple times has no extra effect. Disable it again with --clobber.
Example:
curl --no-clobber --output local/dir/file https://example.com
See also -o, --output and -O, --remote-name. Added in 7.83.0.
--no-keepalive
Disables the use of keepalive messages on the TCP connection. curl otherwise enables them by default.
Note that this is the negated option name documented. You can thus use --keepalive to enforce keepalive.
Providing --no-keepalive multiple times has no extra effect. Disable it again with --keepalive.
Example:
curl --no-keepalive https://example.com
See also --keepalive-time.
--no-npn
(HTTPS) In curl 7.86.0 and later, curl never uses NPN.
Disable the NPN TLS extension. NPN is enabled by default if libcurl was built with an SSL library that supports NPN.
NPN is used by a libcurl that supports HTTP/2 to negotiate HTTP/2 support with the server during https sessions.
Providing --no-npn multiple times has no extra effect. Disable it again with --npn.
Example:
curl --no-npn https://example.com
See also --no-alpn and --http2. --no-npn requires that the underlying libcurl was built to support TLS. Added in
7.36.0.
--no-progress-meter
Option to switch off the progress meter output without muting or otherwise affecting warning and informational mes‐
sages like -s, --silent does.
Note that this is the negated option name documented. You can thus use --progress-meter to enable the progress meter
again.
Providing --no-progress-meter multiple times has no extra effect. Disable it again with --progress-meter.
Example:
curl --no-progress-meter -o store https://example.com
See also -v, --verbose and -s, --silent. Added in 7.67.0.
--no-sessionid
(TLS) Disable curl's use of SSL session-ID caching. By default all transfers are done using the cache. Note that
while nothing should ever get hurt by attempting to reuse SSL session-IDs, there seem to be broken SSL implementa‐
tions in the wild that may require you to disable this in order for you to succeed.
Note that this is the negated option name documented. You can thus use --sessionid to enforce session-ID caching.
Providing --no-sessionid multiple times has no extra effect. Disable it again with --sessionid.
Example:
curl --no-sessionid https://example.com
See also -k, --insecure.
--noproxy <no-proxy-list>
Comma-separated list of hosts for which not to use a proxy, if one is specified. The only wildcard is a single *
character, which matches all hosts, and effectively disables the proxy. Each name in this list is matched as either a
domain which contains the hostname, or the hostname itself. For example, local.com would match local.com, lo‐
cal.com:80, and www.local.com, but not www.notlocal.com.
Since 7.53.0, This option overrides the environment variables that disable the proxy ('no_proxy' and 'NO_PROXY'). If
there's an environment variable disabling a proxy, you can set the noproxy list to "" to override it.
Since 7.86.0, IP addresses specified to this option can be provided using CIDR notation: an appended slash and number
specifies the number of "network bits" out of the address to use in the comparison. For example "192.168.0.0/16"
would match all addresses starting with "192.168".
If --noproxy is provided several times, the last set value will be used.
Example:
curl --noproxy "www.example" https://example.com
See also -x, --proxy.
--ntlm-wb
(HTTP) Enables NTLM much in the style --ntlm does, but hand over the authentication to the separate binary ntlmauth
application that is executed when needed.
Providing --ntlm-wb multiple times has no extra effect.
Example:
curl --ntlm-wb -u user:password https://example.com
See also --ntlm and --proxy-ntlm.
--ntlm (HTTP) Enables NTLM authentication. The NTLM authentication method was designed by Microsoft and is used by IIS web
servers. It is a proprietary protocol, reverse-engineered by clever people and implemented in curl based on their ef‐
forts. This kind of behavior should not be endorsed, you should encourage everyone who uses NTLM to switch to a pub‐
lic and documented authentication method instead, such as Digest.
If you want to enable NTLM for your proxy authentication, then use --proxy-ntlm.
If this option is used several times, only the first one is used.
Providing --ntlm multiple times has no extra effect.
Example:
curl --ntlm -u user:password https://example.com
See also --proxy-ntlm. --ntlm requires that the underlying libcurl was built to support TLS. This option is mutually
exclusive to --basic and --negotiate and --digest and --anyauth.
--oauth2-bearer <token>
(IMAP LDAP POP3 SMTP HTTP) Specify the Bearer Token for OAUTH 2.0 server authentication. The Bearer Token is used in
conjunction with the user name which can be specified as part of the --url or -u, --user options.
The Bearer Token and user name are formatted according to RFC 6750.
If --oauth2-bearer is provided several times, the last set value will be used.
Example:
curl --oauth2-bearer "mF_9.B5f-4.1JqM" https://example.com
See also --basic, --ntlm and --digest. Added in 7.33.0.
--output-dir <dir>
This option specifies the directory in which files should be stored, when -O, --remote-name or -o, --output are used.
The given output directory is used for all URLs and output options on the command line, up until the first -:,
--next.
If the specified target directory does not exist, the operation will fail unless --create-dirs is also used.
If --output-dir is provided several times, the last set value will be used.
Example:
curl --output-dir "tmp" -O https://example.com
See also -O, --remote-name and -J, --remote-header-name. Added in 7.73.0.
-o, --output <file>
Write output to <file> instead of stdout. If you are using {} or [] to fetch multiple documents, you should quote the
URL and you can use '#' followed by a number in the <file> specifier. That variable will be replaced with the current
string for the URL being fetched. Like in:
curl "http://{one,two}.example.com" -o "file_#1.txt"
or use several variables like:
curl "http://{site,host}.host[1-5].com" -o "#1_#2"
You may use this option as many times as the number of URLs you have. For example, if you specify two URLs on the
same command line, you can use it like this:
curl -o aa example.com -o bb example.net
and the order of the -o options and the URLs does not matter, just that the first -o is for the first URL and so on,
so the above command line can also be written as
curl example.com example.net -o aa -o bb
See also the --create-dirs option to create the local directories dynamically. Specifying the output as '-' (a single
dash) will force the output to be done to stdout.
To suppress response bodies, you can redirect output to /dev/null:
curl example.com -o /dev/null
Or for Windows use nul:
curl example.com -o nul
-o, --output can be used several times in a command line
Examples:
curl -o file https://example.com
curl "http://{one,two}.example.com" -o "file_#1.txt"
curl "http://{site,host}.host[1-5].com" -o "#1_#2"
curl -o file https://example.com -o file2 https://example.net
See also -O, --remote-name, --remote-name-all and -J, --remote-header-name.
--parallel-immediate
When doing parallel transfers, this option will instruct curl that it should rather prefer opening up more connec‐
tions in parallel at once rather than waiting to see if new transfers can be added as multiplexed streams on another
connection.
This option is global and does not need to be specified for each use of -:, --next.
Providing --parallel-immediate multiple times has no extra effect. Disable it again with --no-parallel-immediate.
Example:
curl --parallel-immediate -Z https://example.com -o file1 https://example.com -o file2
See also -Z, --parallel and --parallel-max. Added in 7.68.0.
--parallel-max <num>
When asked to do parallel transfers, using -Z, --parallel, this option controls the maximum amount of transfers to do
simultaneously.
This option is global and does not need to be specified for each use of -:, --next.
The default is 50.
If --parallel-max is provided several times, the last set value will be used.
Example:
curl --parallel-max 100 -Z https://example.com ftp://example.com/
See also -Z, --parallel. Added in 7.66.0.
-Z, --parallel
Makes curl perform its transfers in parallel as compared to the regular serial manner.
This option is global and does not need to be specified for each use of -:, --next.
Providing -Z, --parallel multiple times has no extra effect. Disable it again with --no-parallel.
Example:
curl --parallel https://example.com -o file1 https://example.com -o file2
See also -:, --next and -v, --verbose. Added in 7.66.0.
--pass <phrase>
(SSH TLS) Passphrase for the private key.
If --pass is provided several times, the last set value will be used.
Example:
curl --pass secret --key file https://example.com
See also --key and -u, --user.
--path-as-is
Tell curl to not handle sequences of /../ or /./ in the given URL path. Normally curl will squash or merge them ac‐
cording to standards but with this option set you tell it not to do that.
Providing --path-as-is multiple times has no extra effect. Disable it again with --no-path-as-is.
Example:
curl --path-as-is https://example.com/../../etc/passwd
See also --request-target. Added in 7.42.0.
--pinnedpubkey <hashes>
(TLS) Tells curl to use the specified public key file (or hashes) to verify the peer. This can be a path to a file
which contains a single public key in PEM or DER format, or any number of base64 encoded sha256 hashes preceded by
'sha256//' and separated by ';'.
When negotiating a TLS or SSL connection, the server sends a certificate indicating its identity. A public key is ex‐
tracted from this certificate and if it does not exactly match the public key provided to this option, curl will
abort the connection before sending or receiving any data.
PEM/DER support:
7.39.0: OpenSSL, GnuTLS and GSKit
7.43.0: NSS and wolfSSL
7.47.0: mbedtls
sha256 support:
7.44.0: OpenSSL, GnuTLS, NSS and wolfSSL
7.47.0: mbedtls
Other SSL backends not supported.
If --pinnedpubkey is provided several times, the last set value will be used.
Examples:
curl --pinnedpubkey keyfile https://example.com
curl --pinnedpubkey 'sha256//ce118b51897f4452dc' https://example.com
See also --hostpubsha256. Added in 7.39.0.
--post301
(HTTP) Tells curl to respect RFC 7231/6.4.2 and not convert POST requests into GET requests when following a 301 re‐
direction. The non-RFC behavior is ubiquitous in web browsers, so curl does the conversion by default to maintain
consistency. However, a server may require a POST to remain a POST after such a redirection. This option is meaning‐
ful only when using -L, --location.
Providing --post301 multiple times has no extra effect. Disable it again with --no-post301.
Example:
curl --post301 --location -d "data" https://example.com
See also --post302, --post303 and -L, --location.
--post302
(HTTP) Tells curl to respect RFC 7231/6.4.3 and not convert POST requests into GET requests when following a 302 re‐
direction. The non-RFC behavior is ubiquitous in web browsers, so curl does the conversion by default to maintain
consistency. However, a server may require a POST to remain a POST after such a redirection. This option is meaning‐
ful only when using -L, --location.
Providing --post302 multiple times has no extra effect. Disable it again with --no-post302.
Example:
curl --post302 --location -d "data" https://example.com
See also --post301, --post303 and -L, --location.
--post303
(HTTP) Tells curl to violate RFC 7231/6.4.4 and not convert POST requests into GET requests when following 303 redi‐
rections. A server may require a POST to remain a POST after a 303 redirection. This option is meaningful only when
using -L, --location.
Providing --post303 multiple times has no extra effect. Disable it again with --no-post303.
Example:
curl --post303 --location -d "data" https://example.com
See also --post302, --post301 and -L, --location.
--preproxy [protocol://]host[:port]
Use the specified SOCKS proxy before connecting to an HTTP or HTTPS -x, --proxy. In such a case curl first connects
to the SOCKS proxy and then connects (through SOCKS) to the HTTP or HTTPS proxy. Hence pre proxy.
The pre proxy string should be specified with a protocol:// prefix to specify alternative proxy protocols. Use
socks4://, socks4a://, socks5:// or socks5h:// to request the specific SOCKS version to be used. No protocol speci‐
fied will make curl default to SOCKS4.
If the port number is not specified in the proxy string, it is assumed to be 1080.
User and password that might be provided in the proxy string are URL decoded by curl. This allows you to pass in spe‐
cial characters such as @ by using %40 or pass in a colon with %3a.
If --preproxy is provided several times, the last set value will be used.
Example:
curl --preproxy socks5://proxy.example -x http://http.example https://example.com
See also -x, --proxy and --socks5. Added in 7.52.0.
-#, --progress-bar
Make curl display transfer progress as a simple progress bar instead of the standard, more informational, meter.
This progress bar draws a single line of '#' characters across the screen and shows a percentage if the transfer size
is known. For transfers without a known size, there will be space ship (-=o=-) that moves back and forth but only
while data is being transferred, with a set of flying hash sign symbols on top.
This option is global and does not need to be specified for each use of -:, --next.
Providing -#, --progress-bar multiple times has no extra effect. Disable it again with --no-progress-bar.
Example:
curl -# -O https://example.com
See also --styled-output.
--proto-default <protocol>
Tells curl to use protocol for any URL missing a scheme name.
An unknown or unsupported protocol causes error CURLE_UNSUPPORTED_PROTOCOL (1).
This option does not change the default proxy protocol (http).
Without this option set, curl guesses protocol based on the host name, see --url for details.
If --proto-default is provided several times, the last set value will be used.
Example:
curl --proto-default https ftp.example.com
See also --proto and --proto-redir. Added in 7.45.0.
--proto-redir <protocols>
Tells curl to limit what protocols it may use on redirect. Protocols denied by --proto are not overridden by this op‐
tion. See --proto for how protocols are represented.
Example, allow only HTTP and HTTPS on redirect:
curl --proto-redir -all,http,https http://example.com
By default curl will only allow HTTP, HTTPS, FTP and FTPS on redirect (since 7.65.2). Specifying all or +all enables
all protocols on redirects, which is not good for security.
If --proto-redir is provided several times, the last set value will be used.
Example:
curl --proto-redir =http,https https://example.com
See also --proto.
--proto <protocols>
Tells curl to limit what protocols it may use for transfers. Protocols are evaluated left to right, are comma sepa‐
rated, and are each a protocol name or 'all', optionally prefixed by zero or more modifiers. Available modifiers are:
+ Permit this protocol in addition to protocols already permitted (this is the default if no modifier is used).
- Deny this protocol, removing it from the list of protocols already permitted.
= Permit only this protocol (ignoring the list already permitted), though subject to later modification by subse‐
quent entries in the comma separated list.
For example:
--proto -ftps uses the default protocols, but disables ftps
--proto -all,https,+http
only enables http and https
--proto =http,https
also only enables http and https
Unknown and disabled protocols produce a warning. This allows scripts to safely rely on being able to disable poten‐
tially dangerous protocols, without relying upon support for that protocol being built into curl to avoid an error.
This option can be used multiple times, in which case the effect is the same as concatenating the protocols into one
instance of the option.
If --proto is provided several times, the last set value will be used.
Example:
curl --proto =http,https,sftp https://example.com
See also --proto-redir and --proto-default.
--proxy-anyauth
Tells curl to pick a suitable authentication method when communicating with the given HTTP proxy. This might cause an
extra request/response round-trip.
Providing --proxy-anyauth multiple times has no extra effect.
Example:
curl --proxy-anyauth --proxy-user user:passwd -x proxy https://example.com
See also -x, --proxy, --proxy-basic and --proxy-digest.
--proxy-basic
Tells curl to use HTTP Basic authentication when communicating with the given proxy. Use --basic for enabling HTTP
Basic with a remote host. Basic is the default authentication method curl uses with proxies.
Providing --proxy-basic multiple times has no extra effect.
Example:
curl --proxy-basic --proxy-user user:passwd -x proxy https://example.com
See also -x, --proxy, --proxy-anyauth and --proxy-digest.
--proxy-cacert <file>
Same as --cacert but used in HTTPS proxy context.
If --proxy-cacert is provided several times, the last set value will be used.
Example:
curl --proxy-cacert CA-file.txt -x https://proxy https://example.com
See also --proxy-capath, --cacert, --capath and -x, --proxy. Added in 7.52.0.
--proxy-capath <dir>
Same as --capath but used in HTTPS proxy context.
If --proxy-capath is provided several times, the last set value will be used.
Example:
curl --proxy-capath /local/directory -x https://proxy https://example.com
See also --proxy-cacert, -x, --proxy and --capath. Added in 7.52.0.
--proxy-cert-type <type>
Same as --cert-type but used in HTTPS proxy context.
If --proxy-cert-type is provided several times, the last set value will be used.
Example:
curl --proxy-cert-type PEM --proxy-cert file -x https://proxy https://example.com
See also --proxy-cert. Added in 7.52.0.
--proxy-cert <cert[:passwd]>
Same as -E, --cert but used in HTTPS proxy context.
If --proxy-cert is provided several times, the last set value will be used.
Example:
curl --proxy-cert file -x https://proxy https://example.com
See also --proxy-cert-type. Added in 7.52.0.
--proxy-ciphers <list>
Same as --ciphers but used in HTTPS proxy context.
If --proxy-ciphers is provided several times, the last set value will be used.
Example:
curl --proxy-ciphers ECDHE-ECDSA-AES256-CCM8 -x https://proxy https://example.com
See also --ciphers, --curves and -x, --proxy. Added in 7.52.0.
--proxy-crlfile <file>
Same as --crlfile but used in HTTPS proxy context.
If --proxy-crlfile is provided several times, the last set value will be used.
Example:
curl --proxy-crlfile rejects.txt -x https://proxy https://example.com
See also --crlfile and -x, --proxy. Added in 7.52.0.
--proxy-digest
Tells curl to use HTTP Digest authentication when communicating with the given proxy. Use --digest for enabling HTTP
Digest with a remote host.
Providing --proxy-digest multiple times has no extra effect.
Example:
curl --proxy-digest --proxy-user user:passwd -x proxy https://example.com
See also -x, --proxy, --proxy-anyauth and --proxy-basic.
--proxy-header <header/@file>
(HTTP) Extra header to include in the request when sending HTTP to a proxy. You may specify any number of extra head‐
ers. This is the equivalent option to -H, --header but is for proxy communication only like in CONNECT requests when
you want a separate header sent to the proxy to what is sent to the actual remote host.
curl will make sure that each header you add/replace is sent with the proper end-of-line marker, you should thus not
add that as a part of the header content: do not add newlines or carriage returns, they will only mess things up for
you.
Headers specified with this option will not be included in requests that curl knows will not be sent to a proxy.
Starting in 7.55.0, this option can take an argument in @filename style, which then adds a header for each line in
the input file. Using @- will make curl read the header file from stdin.
This option can be used multiple times to add/replace/remove multiple headers.
--proxy-header can be used several times in a command line
Examples:
curl --proxy-header "X-First-Name: Joe" -x http://proxy https://example.com
curl --proxy-header "User-Agent: surprise" -x http://proxy https://example.com
curl --proxy-header "Host:" -x http://proxy https://example.com
See also -x, --proxy. Added in 7.37.0.
--proxy-insecure
Same as -k, --insecure but used in HTTPS proxy context.
Providing --proxy-insecure multiple times has no extra effect. Disable it again with --no-proxy-insecure.
Example:
curl --proxy-insecure -x https://proxy https://example.com
See also -x, --proxy and -k, --insecure. Added in 7.52.0.
--proxy-key-type <type>
Same as --key-type but used in HTTPS proxy context.
If --proxy-key-type is provided several times, the last set value will be used.
Example:
curl --proxy-key-type DER --proxy-key here -x https://proxy https://example.com
See also --proxy-key and -x, --proxy. Added in 7.52.0.
--proxy-key <key>
Same as --key but used in HTTPS proxy context.
If --proxy-key is provided several times, the last set value will be used.
Example:
curl --proxy-key here -x https://proxy https://example.com
See also --proxy-key-type and -x, --proxy. Added in 7.52.0.
--proxy-negotiate
Tells curl to use HTTP Negotiate (SPNEGO) authentication when communicating with the given proxy. Use --negotiate for
enabling HTTP Negotiate (SPNEGO) with a remote host.
Providing --proxy-negotiate multiple times has no extra effect.
Example:
curl --proxy-negotiate --proxy-user user:passwd -x proxy https://example.com
See also --proxy-anyauth and --proxy-basic.
--proxy-ntlm
Tells curl to use HTTP NTLM authentication when communicating with the given proxy. Use --ntlm for enabling NTLM with
a remote host.
Providing --proxy-ntlm multiple times has no extra effect.
Example:
curl --proxy-ntlm --proxy-user user:passwd -x http://proxy https://example.com
See also --proxy-negotiate and --proxy-anyauth.
--proxy-pass <phrase>
Same as --pass but used in HTTPS proxy context.
If --proxy-pass is provided several times, the last set value will be used.
Example:
curl --proxy-pass secret --proxy-key here -x https://proxy https://example.com
See also -x, --proxy and --proxy-key. Added in 7.52.0.
--proxy-pinnedpubkey <hashes>
(TLS) Tells curl to use the specified public key file (or hashes) to verify the proxy. This can be a path to a file
which contains a single public key in PEM or DER format, or any number of base64 encoded sha256 hashes preceded by
'sha256//' and separated by ';'.
When negotiating a TLS or SSL connection, the server sends a certificate indicating its identity. A public key is ex‐
tracted from this certificate and if it does not exactly match the public key provided to this option, curl will
abort the connection before sending or receiving any data.
If --proxy-pinnedpubkey is provided several times, the last set value will be used.
Examples:
curl --proxy-pinnedpubkey keyfile https://example.com
curl --proxy-pinnedpubkey 'sha256//ce118b51897f4452dc' https://example.com
See also --pinnedpubkey and -x, --proxy. Added in 7.59.0.
--proxy-service-name <name>
This option allows you to change the service name for proxy negotiation.
If --proxy-service-name is provided several times, the last set value will be used.
Example:
curl --proxy-service-name "shrubbery" -x proxy https://example.com
See also --service-name and -x, --proxy. Added in 7.43.0.
--proxy-ssl-allow-beast
Same as --ssl-allow-beast but used in HTTPS proxy context.
Providing --proxy-ssl-allow-beast multiple times has no extra effect. Disable it again with --no-proxy-ssl-allow-
beast.
Example:
curl --proxy-ssl-allow-beast -x https://proxy https://example.com
See also --ssl-allow-beast and -x, --proxy. Added in 7.52.0.
--proxy-ssl-auto-client-cert
Same as --ssl-auto-client-cert but used in HTTPS proxy context.
Providing --proxy-ssl-auto-client-cert multiple times has no extra effect. Disable it again with --no-proxy-ssl-
auto-client-cert.
Example:
curl --proxy-ssl-auto-client-cert -x https://proxy https://example.com
See also --ssl-auto-client-cert and -x, --proxy. Added in 7.77.0.
--proxy-tls13-ciphers <ciphersuite list>
(TLS) Specifies which cipher suites to use in the connection to your HTTPS proxy when it negotiates TLS 1.3. The list
of ciphers suites must specify valid ciphers. Read up on TLS 1.3 cipher suite details on this URL:
https://curl.se/docs/ssl-ciphers.html
This option is currently used only when curl is built to use OpenSSL 1.1.1 or later. If you are using a different SSL
backend you can try setting TLS 1.3 cipher suites by using the --proxy-ciphers option.
If --proxy-tls13-ciphers is provided several times, the last set value will be used.
Example:
curl --proxy-tls13-ciphers TLS_AES_128_GCM_SHA256 -x proxy https://example.com
See also --tls13-ciphers and --curves. Added in 7.61.0.
--proxy-tlsauthtype <type>
Same as --tlsauthtype but used in HTTPS proxy context.
If --proxy-tlsauthtype is provided several times, the last set value will be used.
Example:
curl --proxy-tlsauthtype SRP -x https://proxy https://example.com
See also -x, --proxy and --proxy-tlsuser. Added in 7.52.0.
--proxy-tlspassword <string>
Same as --tlspassword but used in HTTPS proxy context.
If --proxy-tlspassword is provided several times, the last set value will be used.
Example:
curl --proxy-tlspassword passwd -x https://proxy https://example.com
See also -x, --proxy and --proxy-tlsuser. Added in 7.52.0.
--proxy-tlsuser <name>
Same as --tlsuser but used in HTTPS proxy context.
If --proxy-tlsuser is provided several times, the last set value will be used.
Example:
curl --proxy-tlsuser smith -x https://proxy https://example.com
See also -x, --proxy and --proxy-tlspassword. Added in 7.52.0.
--proxy-tlsv1
Same as -1, --tlsv1 but used in HTTPS proxy context.
Providing --proxy-tlsv1 multiple times has no extra effect.
Example:
curl --proxy-tlsv1 -x https://proxy https://example.com
See also -x, --proxy. Added in 7.52.0.
-U, --proxy-user <user:password>
Specify the user name and password to use for proxy authentication.
If you use a Windows SSPI-enabled curl binary and do either Negotiate or NTLM authentication then you can tell curl
to select the user name and password from your environment by specifying a single colon with this option: "-U :".
On systems where it works, curl will hide the given option argument from process listings. This is not enough to pro‐
tect credentials from possibly getting seen by other users on the same system as they will still be visible for a mo‐
ment before cleared. Such sensitive data should be retrieved from a file instead or similar and never used in clear
text in a command line.
If -U, --proxy-user is provided several times, the last set value will be used.
Example:
curl --proxy-user name:pwd -x proxy https://example.com
See also --proxy-pass.
-x, --proxy [protocol://]host[:port]
Use the specified proxy.
The proxy string can be specified with a protocol:// prefix. No protocol specified or http:// will be treated as HTTP
proxy. Use socks4://, socks4a://, socks5:// or socks5h:// to request a specific SOCKS version to be used.
Unix domain sockets are supported for socks proxy. Set localhost for the host part. e.g. socks5h://local‐
host/path/to/socket.sock
HTTPS proxy support via https:// protocol prefix was added in 7.52.0 for OpenSSL, GnuTLS and NSS.
Unrecognized and unsupported proxy protocols cause an error since 7.52.0. Prior versions may ignore the protocol and
use http:// instead.
If the port number is not specified in the proxy string, it is assumed to be 1080.
This option overrides existing environment variables that set the proxy to use. If there's an environment variable
setting a proxy, you can set proxy to "" to override it.
All operations that are performed over an HTTP proxy will transparently be converted to HTTP. It means that certain
protocol specific operations might not be available. This is not the case if you can tunnel through the proxy, as one
with the -p, --proxytunnel option.
User and password that might be provided in the proxy string are URL decoded by curl. This allows you to pass in spe‐
cial characters such as @ by using %40 or pass in a colon with %3a.
The proxy host can be specified the same way as the proxy environment variables, including the protocol prefix
(http://) and the embedded user + password.
When a proxy is used, the active FTP mode as set with -P, --ftp-port, cannot be used.
If -x, --proxy is provided several times, the last set value will be used.
Example:
curl --proxy http://proxy.example https://example.com
See also --socks5 and --proxy-basic.
--proxy1.0 <host[:port]>
Use the specified HTTP 1.0 proxy. If the port number is not specified, it is assumed at port 1080.
The only difference between this and the HTTP proxy option -x, --proxy, is that attempts to use CONNECT through the
proxy will specify an HTTP 1.0 protocol instead of the default HTTP 1.1.
Providing --proxy1.0 multiple times has no extra effect.
Example:
curl --proxy1.0 -x http://proxy https://example.com
See also -x, --proxy, --socks5 and --preproxy.
-p, --proxytunnel
When an HTTP proxy is used -x, --proxy, this option will make curl tunnel through the proxy. The tunnel approach is
made with the HTTP proxy CONNECT request and requires that the proxy allows direct connect to the remote port number
curl wants to tunnel through to.
To suppress proxy CONNECT response headers when curl is set to output headers use --suppress-connect-headers.
Providing -p, --proxytunnel multiple times has no extra effect. Disable it again with --no-proxytunnel.
Example:
curl --proxytunnel -x http://proxy https://example.com
See also -x, --proxy.
--pubkey <key>
(SFTP SCP) Public key file name. Allows you to provide your public key in this separate file.
(As of 7.39.0, curl attempts to automatically extract the public key from the private key file, so passing this op‐
tion is generally not required. Note that this public key extraction requires libcurl to be linked against a copy of
libssh2 1.2.8 or higher that is itself linked against OpenSSL.)
If --pubkey is provided several times, the last set value will be used.
Example:
curl --pubkey file.pub sftp://example.com/
See also --pass.
-Q, --quote <command>
(FTP SFTP) Send an arbitrary command to the remote FTP or SFTP server. Quote commands are sent BEFORE the transfer
takes place (just after the initial PWD command in an FTP transfer, to be exact). To make commands take place after a
successful transfer, prefix them with a dash '-'.
(FTP only) To make commands be sent after curl has changed the working directory, just before the file transfer com‐
mand(s), prefix the command with a '+'. This is not performed when a directory listing is performed.
You may specify any number of commands.
By default curl will stop at first failure. To make curl continue even if the command fails, prefix the command with
an asterisk (*). Otherwise, if the server returns failure for one of the commands, the entire operation will be
aborted.
You must send syntactically correct FTP commands as RFC 959 defines to FTP servers, or one of the commands listed be‐
low to SFTP servers.
This option can be used multiple times.
SFTP is a binary protocol. Unlike for FTP, curl interprets SFTP quote commands itself before sending them to the
server. File names may be quoted shell-style to embed spaces or special characters. Following is the list of all sup‐
ported SFTP quote commands:
atime date file
The atime command sets the last access time of the file named by the file operand. The <date expression> can
be all sorts of date strings, see the curl_getdate(3) man page for date expression details. (Added in 7.73.0)
chgrp group file
The chgrp command sets the group ID of the file named by the file operand to the group ID specified by the
group operand. The group operand is a decimal integer group ID.
chmod mode file
The chmod command modifies the file mode bits of the specified file. The mode operand is an octal integer mode
number.
chown user file
The chown command sets the owner of the file named by the file operand to the user ID specified by the user
operand. The user operand is a decimal integer user ID.
ln source_file target_file
The ln and symlink commands create a symbolic link at the target_file location pointing to the source_file lo‐
cation.
mkdir directory_name
The mkdir command creates the directory named by the directory_name operand.
mtime date file
The mtime command sets the last modification time of the file named by the file operand. The <date expression>
can be all sorts of date strings, see the curl_getdate(3) man page for date expression details. (Added in
7.73.0)
pwd The pwd command returns the absolute pathname of the current working directory.
rename source target
The rename command renames the file or directory named by the source operand to the destination path named by
the target operand.
rm file
The rm command removes the file specified by the file operand.
rmdir directory
The rmdir command removes the directory entry specified by the directory operand, provided it is empty.
symlink source_file target_file
See ln.
-Q, --quote can be used several times in a command line
Example:
curl --quote "DELE file" ftp://example.com/foo
See also -X, --request.
--random-file <file>
Deprecated option. This option is ignored by curl since 7.84.0. Prior to that it only had an effect on curl if built
to use old versions of OpenSSL.
Specify the path name to file containing what will be considered as random data. The data may be used to seed the
random engine for SSL connections.
If --random-file is provided several times, the last set value will be used.
Example:
curl --random-file rubbish https://example.com
See also --egd-file.
-r, --range <range>
(HTTP FTP SFTP FILE) Retrieve a byte range (i.e. a partial document) from an HTTP/1.1, FTP or SFTP server or a local
FILE. Ranges can be specified in a number of ways.
0-499 specifies the first 500 bytes
500-999 specifies the second 500 bytes
-500 specifies the last 500 bytes
9500- specifies the bytes from offset 9500 and forward
0-0,-1 specifies the first and last byte only(*)(HTTP)
100-199,500-599
specifies two separate 100-byte ranges(*) (HTTP)
(*) = NOTE that this will cause the server to reply with a multipart response, which will be returned as-is by curl!
Parsing or otherwise transforming this response is the responsibility of the caller.
Only digit characters (0-9) are valid in the 'start' and 'stop' fields of the 'start-stop' range syntax. If a non-
digit character is given in the range, the server's response will be unspecified, depending on the server's configu‐
ration.
You should also be aware that many HTTP/1.1 servers do not have this feature enabled, so that when you attempt to get
a range, you will instead get the whole document.
FTP and SFTP range downloads only support the simple 'start-stop' syntax (optionally with one of the numbers omit‐
ted). FTP use depends on the extended FTP command SIZE.
If -r, --range is provided several times, the last set value will be used.
Example:
curl --range 22-44 https://example.com
See also -C, --continue-at and -a, --append.
--rate <max request rate>
Specify the maximum transfer frequency you allow curl to use - in number of transfer starts per time unit (sometimes
called request rate). Without this option, curl will start the next transfer as fast as possible.
If given several URLs and a transfer completes faster than the allowed rate, curl will wait until the next transfer
is started to maintain the requested rate. This option has no effect when -Z, --parallel is used.
The request rate is provided as "N/U" where N is an integer number and U is a time unit. Supported units are 's'
(second), 'm' (minute), 'h' (hour) and 'd' /(day, as in a 24 hour unit). The default time unit, if no "/U" is pro‐
vided, is number of transfers per hour.
If curl is told to allow 10 requests per minute, it will not start the next request until 6 seconds have elapsed
since the previous transfer was started.
This function uses millisecond resolution. If the allowed frequency is set more than 1000 per second, it will instead
run unrestricted.
When retrying transfers, enabled with --retry, the separate retry delay logic is used and not this setting.
If --rate is provided several times, the last set value will be used.
Examples:
curl --rate 2/s https://example.com
curl --rate 3/h https://example.com
curl --rate 14/m https://example.com
See also --limit-rate and --retry-delay. Added in 7.84.0.
--raw (HTTP) When used, it disables all internal HTTP decoding of content or transfer encodings and instead makes them
passed on unaltered, raw.
Providing --raw multiple times has no extra effect. Disable it again with --no-raw.
Example:
curl --raw https://example.com
See also --tr-encoding.
-e, --referer <URL>
(HTTP) Sends the "Referrer Page" information to the HTTP server. This can also be set with the -H, --header flag of
course. When used with -L, --location you can append ";auto" to the -e, --referer URL to make curl automatically set
the previous URL when it follows a Location: header. The ";auto" string can be used alone, even if you do not set an
initial -e, --referer.
If -e, --referer is provided several times, the last set value will be used.
Examples:
curl --referer "https://fake.example" https://example.com
curl --referer "https://fake.example;auto" -L https://example.com
curl --referer ";auto" -L https://example.com
See also -A, --user-agent and -H, --header.
-J, --remote-header-name
(HTTP) This option tells the -O, --remote-name option to use the server-specified Content-Disposition filename in‐
stead of extracting a filename from the URL. If the server-provided file name contains a path, that will be stripped
off before the file name is used.
The file is saved in the current directory, or in the directory specified with --output-dir.
If the server specifies a file name and a file with that name already exists in the destination directory, it will
not be overwritten and an error will occur - unless you allow it by using the --clobber option. If the server does
not specify a file name then this option has no effect.
There's no attempt to decode %-sequences (yet) in the provided file name, so this option may provide you with rather
unexpected file names.
This feature uses the name from the "filename" field, it does not yet support the "filename*" field (filenames with
explicit character sets).
WARNING: Exercise judicious use of this option, especially on Windows. A rogue server could send you the name of a
DLL or other file that could be loaded automatically by Windows or some third party software.
Providing -J, --remote-header-name multiple times has no extra effect. Disable it again with --no-remote-header-
name.
Example:
curl -OJ https://example.com/file
See also -O, --remote-name.
--remote-name-all
This option changes the default action for all given URLs to be dealt with as if -O, --remote-name were used for each
one. So if you want to disable that for a specific URL after --remote-name-all has been used, you must use "-o -" or
--no-remote-name.
Providing --remote-name-all multiple times has no extra effect. Disable it again with --no-remote-name-all.
Example:
curl --remote-name-all ftp://example.com/file1 ftp://example.com/file2
See also -O, --remote-name.
-O, --remote-name
Write output to a local file named like the remote file we get. (Only the file part of the remote file is used, the
path is cut off.)
The file will be saved in the current working directory. If you want the file saved in a different directory, make
sure you change the current working directory before invoking curl with this option or use --output-dir.
The remote file name to use for saving is extracted from the given URL, nothing else, and if it already exists it
will be overwritten. If you want the server to be able to choose the file name refer to -J, --remote-header-name
which can be used in addition to this option. If the server chooses a file name and that name already exists it will
not be overwritten.
There is no URL decoding done on the file name. If it has %20 or other URL encoded parts of the name, they will end
up as-is as file name.
You may use this option as many times as the number of URLs you have.
-O, --remote-name can be used several times in a command line
Example:
curl -O https://example.com/filename
See also --remote-name-all, --output-dir and -J, --remote-header-name.
-R, --remote-time
When used, this will make curl attempt to figure out the timestamp of the remote file, and if that is available make
the local file get that same timestamp.
Providing -R, --remote-time multiple times has no extra effect. Disable it again with --no-remote-time.
Example:
curl --remote-time -o foo https://example.com
See also -O, --remote-name and -z, --time-cond.
--remove-on-error
When curl returns an error when told to save output in a local file, this option removes that saved file before exit‐
ing. This prevents curl from leaving a partial file in the case of an error during transfer.
If the output is not a file, this option has no effect.
Providing --remove-on-error multiple times has no extra effect. Disable it again with --no-remove-on-error.
Example:
curl --remove-on-error -o output https://example.com
See also -f, --fail. Added in 7.83.0.
--request-target <path>
(HTTP) Tells curl to use an alternative "target" (path) instead of using the path as provided in the URL. Particu‐
larly useful when wanting to issue HTTP requests without leading slash or other data that does not follow the regular
URL pattern, like "OPTIONS *".
If --request-target is provided several times, the last set value will be used.
Example:
curl --request-target "*" -X OPTIONS https://example.com
See also -X, --request. Added in 7.55.0.
-X, --request <method>
(HTTP) Specifies a custom request method to use when communicating with the HTTP server. The specified request method
will be used instead of the method otherwise used (which defaults to GET). Read the HTTP 1.1 specification for de‐
tails and explanations. Common additional HTTP requests include PUT and DELETE, but related technologies like WebDAV
offers PROPFIND, COPY, MOVE and more.
Normally you do not need this option. All sorts of GET, HEAD, POST and PUT requests are rather invoked by using dedi‐
cated command line options.
This option only changes the actual word used in the HTTP request, it does not alter the way curl behaves. So for ex‐
ample if you want to make a proper HEAD request, using -X HEAD will not suffice. You need to use the -I, --head op‐
tion.
The method string you set with -X, --request will be used for all requests, which if you for example use -L, --loca‐
tion may cause unintended side-effects when curl does not change request method according to the HTTP 30x response
codes - and similar.
(FTP) Specifies a custom FTP command to use instead of LIST when doing file lists with FTP.
(POP3) Specifies a custom POP3 command to use instead of LIST or RETR.
(IMAP) Specifies a custom IMAP command to use instead of LIST. (Added in 7.30.0)
(SMTP) Specifies a custom SMTP command to use instead of HELP or VRFY. (Added in 7.34.0)
If -X, --request is provided several times, the last set value will be used.
Examples:
curl -X "DELETE" https://example.com
curl -X NLST ftp://example.com/
See also --request-target.
--resolve <[+]host:port:addr[,addr]...>
Provide a custom address for a specific host and port pair. Using this, you can make the curl requests(s) use a spec‐
ified address and prevent the otherwise normally resolved address to be used. Consider it a sort of /etc/hosts alter‐
native provided on the command line. The port number should be the number used for the specific protocol the host
will be used for. It means you need several entries if you want to provide address for the same host but different
ports.
By specifying '*' as host you can tell curl to resolve any host and specific port pair to the specified address.
Wildcard is resolved last so any --resolve with a specific host and port will be used first.
The provided address set by this option will be used even if -4, --ipv4 or -6, --ipv6 is set to make curl use another
IP version.
By prefixing the host with a '+' you can make the entry time out after curl's default timeout (1 minute). Note that
this will only make sense for long running parallel transfers with a lot of files. In such cases, if this option is
used curl will try to resolve the host as it normally would once the timeout has expired.
Support for providing the IP address within [brackets] was added in 7.57.0.
Support for providing multiple IP addresses per entry was added in 7.59.0.
Support for resolving with wildcard was added in 7.64.0.
Support for the '+' prefix was was added in 7.75.0.
This option can be used many times to add many host names to resolve.
--resolve can be used several times in a command line
Example:
curl --resolve example.com:443:127.0.0.1 https://example.com
See also --connect-to and --alt-svc.
--retry-all-errors
Retry on any error. This option is used together with --retry.
This option is the "sledgehammer" of retrying. Do not use this option by default (eg in curlrc), there may be unin‐
tended consequences such as sending or receiving duplicate data. Do not use with redirected input or output. You'd be
much better off handling your unique problems in shell script. Please read the example below.
WARNING: For server compatibility curl attempts to retry failed flaky transfers as close as possible to how they were
started, but this is not possible with redirected input or output. For example, before retrying it removes output
data from a failed partial transfer that was written to an output file. However this is not true of data redirected
to a | pipe or > file, which are not reset. We strongly suggest you do not parse or record output via redirect in
combination with this option, since you may receive duplicate data.
By default curl will not error on an HTTP response code that indicates an HTTP error, if the transfer was successful.
For example, if a server replies 404 Not Found and the reply is fully received then that is not an error. When
--retry is used then curl will retry on some HTTP response codes that indicate transient HTTP errors, but that does
not include most 4xx response codes such as 404. If you want to retry on all response codes that indicate HTTP errors
(4xx and 5xx) then combine with -f, --fail.
Providing --retry-all-errors multiple times has no extra effect. Disable it again with --no-retry-all-errors.
Example:
curl --retry 5 --retry-all-errors https://example.com
See also --retry. Added in 7.71.0.
--retry-connrefused
In addition to the other conditions, consider ECONNREFUSED as a transient error too for --retry. This option is used
together with --retry.
Providing --retry-connrefused multiple times has no extra effect. Disable it again with --no-retry-connrefused.
Example:
curl --retry-connrefused --retry 7 https://example.com
See also --retry and --retry-all-errors. Added in 7.52.0.
--retry-delay <seconds>
Make curl sleep this amount of time before each retry when a transfer has failed with a transient error (it changes
the default backoff time algorithm between retries). This option is only interesting if --retry is also used. Setting
this delay to zero will make curl use the default backoff time.
If --retry-delay is provided several times, the last set value will be used.
Example:
curl --retry-delay 5 --retry 7 https://example.com
See also --retry.
--retry-max-time <seconds>
The retry timer is reset before the first transfer attempt. Retries will be done as usual (see --retry) as long as
the timer has not reached this given limit. Notice that if the timer has not reached the limit, the request will be
made and while performing, it may take longer than this given time period. To limit a single request's maximum time,
use -m, --max-time. Set this option to zero to not timeout retries.
If --retry-max-time is provided several times, the last set value will be used.
Example:
curl --retry-max-time 30 --retry 10 https://example.com
See also --retry.
--retry <num>
If a transient error is returned when curl tries to perform a transfer, it will retry this number of times before
giving up. Setting the number to 0 makes curl do no retries (which is the default). Transient error means either: a
timeout, an FTP 4xx response code or an HTTP 408, 429, 500, 502, 503 or 504 response code.
When curl is about to retry a transfer, it will first wait one second and then for all forthcoming retries it will
double the waiting time until it reaches 10 minutes which then will be the delay between the rest of the retries. By
using --retry-delay you disable this exponential backoff algorithm. See also --retry-max-time to limit the total time
allowed for retries.
Since curl 7.66.0, curl will comply with the Retry-After: response header if one was present to know when to issue
the next retry.
If --retry is provided several times, the last set value will be used.
Example:
curl --retry 7 https://example.com
See also --retry-max-time.
--sasl-authzid <identity>
Use this authorization identity (authzid), during SASL PLAIN authentication, in addition to the authentication iden‐
tity (authcid) as specified by -u, --user.
If the option is not specified, the server will derive the authzid from the authcid, but if specified, and depending
on the server implementation, it may be used to access another user's inbox, that the user has been granted access
to, or a shared mailbox for example.
If --sasl-authzid is provided several times, the last set value will be used.
Example:
curl --sasl-authzid zid imap://example.com/
See also --login-options. Added in 7.66.0.
--sasl-ir
Enable initial response in SASL authentication.
Providing --sasl-ir multiple times has no extra effect. Disable it again with --no-sasl-ir.
Example:
curl --sasl-ir imap://example.com/
See also --sasl-authzid. Added in 7.31.0.
--service-name <name>
This option allows you to change the service name for SPNEGO.
Examples: --negotiate --service-name sockd would use sockd/server-name.
If --service-name is provided several times, the last set value will be used.
Example:
curl --service-name sockd/server https://example.com
See also --negotiate and --proxy-service-name. Added in 7.43.0.
-S, --show-error
When used with -s, --silent, it makes curl show an error message if it fails.
This option is global and does not need to be specified for each use of -:, --next.
Providing -S, --show-error multiple times has no extra effect. Disable it again with --no-show-error.
Example:
curl --show-error --silent https://example.com
See also --no-progress-meter.
-s, --silent
Silent or quiet mode. Do not show progress meter or error messages. Makes Curl mute. It will still output the data
you ask for, potentially even to the terminal/stdout unless you redirect it.
Use -S, --show-error in addition to this option to disable progress meter but still show error messages.
Providing -s, --silent multiple times has no extra effect. Disable it again with --no-silent.
Example:
curl -s https://example.com
See also -v, --verbose, --stderr and --no-progress-meter.
--socks4 <host[:port]>
Use the specified SOCKS4 proxy. If the port number is not specified, it is assumed at port 1080. Using this socket
type make curl resolve the host name and passing the address on to the proxy.
To specify proxy on a unix domain socket, use localhost for host, e.g. socks4://localhost/path/to/socket.sock
This option overrides any previous use of -x, --proxy, as they are mutually exclusive.
This option is superfluous since you can specify a socks4 proxy with -x, --proxy using a socks4:// protocol prefix.
Since 7.52.0, --preproxy can be used to specify a SOCKS proxy at the same time -x, --proxy is used with an HTTP/HTTPS
proxy. In such a case curl first connects to the SOCKS proxy and then connects (through SOCKS) to the HTTP or HTTPS
proxy.
If --socks4 is provided several times, the last set value will be used.
Example:
curl --socks4 hostname:4096 https://example.com
See also --socks4a, --socks5 and --socks5-hostname.
--socks4a <host[:port]>
Use the specified SOCKS4a proxy. If the port number is not specified, it is assumed at port 1080. This asks the proxy
to resolve the host name.
To specify proxy on a unix domain socket, use localhost for host, e.g. socks4a://localhost/path/to/socket.sock
This option overrides any previous use of -x, --proxy, as they are mutually exclusive.
This option is superfluous since you can specify a socks4a proxy with -x, --proxy using a socks4a:// protocol prefix.
Since 7.52.0, --preproxy can be used to specify a SOCKS proxy at the same time -x, --proxy is used with an HTTP/HTTPS
proxy. In such a case curl first connects to the SOCKS proxy and then connects (through SOCKS) to the HTTP or HTTPS
proxy.
If --socks4a is provided several times, the last set value will be used.
Example:
curl --socks4a hostname:4096 https://example.com
See also --socks4, --socks5 and --socks5-hostname.
--socks5-basic
Tells curl to use username/password authentication when connecting to a SOCKS5 proxy. The username/password authen‐
tication is enabled by default. Use --socks5-gssapi to force GSS-API authentication to SOCKS5 proxies.
Providing --socks5-basic multiple times has no extra effect.
Example:
curl --socks5-basic --socks5 hostname:4096 https://example.com
See also --socks5. Added in 7.55.0.
--socks5-gssapi-nec
As part of the GSS-API negotiation a protection mode is negotiated. RFC 1961 says in section 4.3/4.4 it should be
protected, but the NEC reference implementation does not. The option --socks5-gssapi-nec allows the unprotected ex‐
change of the protection mode negotiation.
Providing --socks5-gssapi-nec multiple times has no extra effect. Disable it again with --no-socks5-gssapi-nec.
Example:
curl --socks5-gssapi-nec --socks5 hostname:4096 https://example.com
See also --socks5.
--socks5-gssapi-service <name>
The default service name for a socks server is rcmd/server-fqdn. This option allows you to change it.
Examples: --socks5 proxy-name --socks5-gssapi-service sockd would use sockd/proxy-name --socks5 proxy-name
--socks5-gssapi-service sockd/real-name would use sockd/real-name for cases where the proxy-name does not match the
principal name.
If --socks5-gssapi-service is provided several times, the last set value will be used.
Example:
curl --socks5-gssapi-service sockd --socks5 hostname:4096 https://example.com
See also --socks5.
--socks5-gssapi
Tells curl to use GSS-API authentication when connecting to a SOCKS5 proxy. The GSS-API authentication is enabled by
default (if curl is compiled with GSS-API support). Use --socks5-basic to force username/password authentication to
SOCKS5 proxies.
Providing --socks5-gssapi multiple times has no extra effect. Disable it again with --no-socks5-gssapi.
Example:
curl --socks5-gssapi --socks5 hostname:4096 https://example.com
See also --socks5. Added in 7.55.0.
--socks5-hostname <host[:port]>
Use the specified SOCKS5 proxy (and let the proxy resolve the host name). If the port number is not specified, it is
assumed at port 1080.
To specify proxy on a unix domain socket, use localhost for host, e.g. socks5h://localhost/path/to/socket.sock
This option overrides any previous use of -x, --proxy, as they are mutually exclusive.
This option is superfluous since you can specify a socks5 hostname proxy with -x, --proxy using a socks5h:// protocol
prefix.
Since 7.52.0, --preproxy can be used to specify a SOCKS proxy at the same time -x, --proxy is used with an HTTP/HTTPS
proxy. In such a case curl first connects to the SOCKS proxy and then connects (through SOCKS) to the HTTP or HTTPS
proxy.
If --socks5-hostname is provided several times, the last set value will be used.
Example:
curl --socks5-hostname proxy.example:7000 https://example.com
See also --socks5 and --socks4a.
--socks5 <host[:port]>
Use the specified SOCKS5 proxy - but resolve the host name locally. If the port number is not specified, it is as‐
sumed at port 1080.
To specify proxy on a unix domain socket, use localhost for host, e.g. socks5://localhost/path/to/socket.sock
This option overrides any previous use of -x, --proxy, as they are mutually exclusive.
This option is superfluous since you can specify a socks5 proxy with -x, --proxy using a socks5:// protocol prefix.
Since 7.52.0, --preproxy can be used to specify a SOCKS proxy at the same time -x, --proxy is used with an HTTP/HTTPS
proxy. In such a case curl first connects to the SOCKS proxy and then connects (through SOCKS) to the HTTP or HTTPS
proxy.
This option (as well as --socks4) does not work with IPV6, FTPS or LDAP.
If --socks5 is provided several times, the last set value will be used.
Example:
curl --socks5 proxy.example:7000 https://example.com
See also --socks5-hostname and --socks4a.
-Y, --speed-limit <speed>
If a transfer is slower than this given speed (in bytes per second) for speed-time seconds it gets aborted. speed-
time is set with -y, --speed-time and is 30 if not set.
If -Y, --speed-limit is provided several times, the last set value will be used.
Example:
curl --speed-limit 300 --speed-time 10 https://example.com
See also -y, --speed-time, --limit-rate and -m, --max-time.
-y, --speed-time <seconds>
If a transfer runs slower than speed-limit bytes per second during a speed-time period, the transfer is aborted. If
speed-time is used, the default speed-limit will be 1 unless set with -Y, --speed-limit.
This option controls transfers (in both directions) but will not affect slow connects etc. If this is a concern for
you, try the --connect-timeout option.
If -y, --speed-time is provided several times, the last set value will be used.
Example:
curl --speed-limit 300 --speed-time 10 https://example.com
See also -Y, --speed-limit and --limit-rate.
--ssl-allow-beast
This option tells curl to not work around a security flaw in the SSL3 and TLS1.0 protocols known as BEAST. If this
option is not used, the SSL layer may use workarounds known to cause interoperability problems with some older SSL
implementations.
WARNING: this option loosens the SSL security, and by using this flag you ask for exactly that.
Providing --ssl-allow-beast multiple times has no extra effect. Disable it again with --no-ssl-allow-beast.
Example:
curl --ssl-allow-beast https://example.com
See also --proxy-ssl-allow-beast and -k, --insecure.
--ssl-auto-client-cert
Tell libcurl to automatically locate and use a client certificate for authentication, when requested by the server.
This option is only supported for Schannel (the native Windows SSL library). Prior to 7.77.0 this was the default be‐
havior in libcurl with Schannel. Since the server can request any certificate that supports client authentication in
the OS certificate store it could be a privacy violation and unexpected.
Providing --ssl-auto-client-cert multiple times has no extra effect. Disable it again with --no-ssl-auto-client-
cert.
Example:
curl --ssl-auto-client-cert https://example.com
See also --proxy-ssl-auto-client-cert. Added in 7.77.0.
--ssl-no-revoke
(Schannel) This option tells curl to disable certificate revocation checks. WARNING: this option loosens the SSL se‐
curity, and by using this flag you ask for exactly that.
Providing --ssl-no-revoke multiple times has no extra effect. Disable it again with --no-ssl-no-revoke.
Example:
curl --ssl-no-revoke https://example.com
See also --crlfile. Added in 7.44.0.
--ssl-reqd
(FTP IMAP POP3 SMTP LDAP) Require SSL/TLS for the connection. Terminates the connection if the transfer cannot be up‐
graded to use SSL/TLS.
This option is handled in LDAP since version 7.81.0. It is fully supported by the OpenLDAP backend and rejected by
the generic ldap backend if explicit TLS is required.
This option is unnecessary if you use a URL scheme that in itself implies immediate and implicit use of TLS, like for
FTPS, IMAPS, POP3S, SMTPS and LDAPS. Such transfers will always fail if the TLS handshake does not work.
This option was formerly known as --ftp-ssl-reqd.
Providing --ssl-reqd multiple times has no extra effect. Disable it again with --no-ssl-reqd.
Example:
curl --ssl-reqd ftp://example.com
See also --ssl and -k, --insecure.
--ssl-revoke-best-effort
(Schannel) This option tells curl to ignore certificate revocation checks when they failed due to missing/offline
distribution points for the revocation check lists.
Providing --ssl-revoke-best-effort multiple times has no extra effect. Disable it again with --no-ssl-revoke-best-
effort.
Example:
curl --ssl-revoke-best-effort https://example.com
See also --crlfile and -k, --insecure. Added in 7.70.0.
--ssl (FTP IMAP POP3 SMTP LDAP) Warning: this is considered an insecure option. Consider using --ssl-reqd instead to be
sure curl upgrades to a secure connection.
Try to use SSL/TLS for the connection. Reverts to a non-secure connection if the server does not support SSL/TLS. See
also --ftp-ssl-control and --ssl-reqd for different levels of encryption required.
This option is handled in LDAP since version 7.81.0. It is fully supported by the OpenLDAP backend and ignored by the
generic ldap backend.
Please note that a server may close the connection if the negotiation does not succeed.
This option was formerly known as --ftp-ssl. That option name can still be used but will be removed in a future ver‐
sion.
Providing --ssl multiple times has no extra effect. Disable it again with --no-ssl.
Example:
curl --ssl pop3://example.com/
See also --ssl-reqd, -k, --insecure and --ciphers.
-2, --sslv2
(SSL) This option previously asked curl to use SSLv2, but starting in curl 7.77.0 this instruction is ignored. SSLv2
is widely considered insecure (see RFC 6176).
Providing -2, --sslv2 multiple times has no extra effect.
Example:
curl --sslv2 https://example.com
See also --http1.1 and --http2. -2, --sslv2 requires that the underlying libcurl was built to support TLS. This op‐
tion is mutually exclusive to -3, --sslv3 and -1, --tlsv1 and --tlsv1.1 and --tlsv1.2.
-3, --sslv3
(SSL) This option previously asked curl to use SSLv3, but starting in curl 7.77.0 this instruction is ignored. SSLv3
is widely considered insecure (see RFC 7568).
Providing -3, --sslv3 multiple times has no extra effect.
Example:
curl --sslv3 https://example.com
See also --http1.1 and --http2. -3, --sslv3 requires that the underlying libcurl was built to support TLS. This op‐
tion is mutually exclusive to -2, --sslv2 and -1, --tlsv1 and --tlsv1.1 and --tlsv1.2.
--stderr <file>
Redirect all writes to stderr to the specified file instead. If the file name is a plain '-', it is instead written
to stdout.
This option is global and does not need to be specified for each use of -:, --next.
If --stderr is provided several times, the last set value will be used.
Example:
curl --stderr output.txt https://example.com
See also -v, --verbose and -s, --silent.
--styled-output
Enables the automatic use of bold font styles when writing HTTP headers to the terminal. Use --no-styled-output to
switch them off.
Styled output requires a terminal that supports bold fonts. This feature is not present on curl for Windows due to
lack of this capability.
This option is global and does not need to be specified for each use of -:, --next.
Providing --styled-output multiple times has no extra effect. Disable it again with --no-styled-output.
Example:
curl --styled-output -I https://example.com
See also -I, --head and -v, --verbose. Added in 7.61.0.
--suppress-connect-headers
When -p, --proxytunnel is used and a CONNECT request is made do not output proxy CONNECT response headers. This op‐
tion is meant to be used with -D, --dump-header or -i, --include which are used to show protocol headers in the out‐
put. It has no effect on debug options such as -v, --verbose or --trace, or any statistics.
Providing --suppress-connect-headers multiple times has no extra effect. Disable it again with --no-suppress-con‐
nect-headers.
Example:
curl --suppress-connect-headers --include -x proxy https://example.com
See also -D, --dump-header, -i, --include and -p, --proxytunnel. Added in 7.54.0.
--tcp-fastopen
Enable use of TCP Fast Open (RFC7413).
Providing --tcp-fastopen multiple times has no extra effect. Disable it again with --no-tcp-fastopen.
Example:
curl --tcp-fastopen https://example.com
See also --false-start. Added in 7.49.0.
--tcp-nodelay
Turn on the TCP_NODELAY option. See the curl_easy_setopt(3) man page for details about this option.
Since 7.50.2, curl sets this option by default and you need to explicitly switch it off if you do not want it on.
Providing --tcp-nodelay multiple times has no extra effect. Disable it again with --no-tcp-nodelay.
Example:
curl --tcp-nodelay https://example.com
See also -N, --no-buffer.
-t, --telnet-option <opt=val>
Pass options to the telnet protocol. Supported options are:
TTYPE=<term> Sets the terminal type.
XDISPLOC=<X display> Sets the X display location.
NEW_ENV=<var,val> Sets an environment variable.
-t, --telnet-option can be used several times in a command line
Example:
curl -t TTYPE=vt100 telnet://example.com/
See also -K, --config.
--tftp-blksize <value>
(TFTP) Set TFTP BLKSIZE option (must be >512). This is the block size that curl will try to use when transferring
data to or from a TFTP server. By default 512 bytes will be used.
If --tftp-blksize is provided several times, the last set value will be used.
Example:
curl --tftp-blksize 1024 tftp://example.com/file
See also --tftp-no-options.
--tftp-no-options
(TFTP) Tells curl not to send TFTP options requests.
This option improves interop with some legacy servers that do not acknowledge or properly implement TFTP options.
When this option is used --tftp-blksize is ignored.
Providing --tftp-no-options multiple times has no extra effect. Disable it again with --no-tftp-no-options.
Example:
curl --tftp-no-options tftp://192.168.0.1/
See also --tftp-blksize. Added in 7.48.0.
-z, --time-cond <time>
(HTTP FTP) Request a file that has been modified later than the given time and date, or one that has been modified
before that time. The <date expression> can be all sorts of date strings or if it does not match any internal ones,
it is taken as a filename and tries to get the modification date (mtime) from <file> instead. See the curl_getdate(3)
man pages for date expression details.
Start the date expression with a dash (-) to make it request for a document that is older than the given date/time,
default is a document that is newer than the specified date/time.
If -z, --time-cond is provided several times, the last set value will be used.
Examples:
curl -z "Wed 01 Sep 2021 12:18:00" https://example.com
curl -z "-Wed 01 Sep 2021 12:18:00" https://example.com
curl -z file https://example.com
See also --etag-compare and -R, --remote-time.
--tls-max <VERSION>
(SSL) VERSION defines maximum supported TLS version. The minimum acceptable version is set by tlsv1.0, tlsv1.1,
tlsv1.2 or tlsv1.3.
If the connection is done without TLS, this option has no effect. This includes QUIC-using (HTTP/3) transfers.
default
Use up to recommended TLS version.
1.0 Use up to TLSv1.0.
1.1 Use up to TLSv1.1.
1.2 Use up to TLSv1.2.
1.3 Use up to TLSv1.3.
If --tls-max is provided several times, the last set value will be used.
Examples:
curl --tls-max 1.2 https://example.com
curl --tls-max 1.3 --tlsv1.2 https://example.com
See also --tlsv1.0, --tlsv1.1, --tlsv1.2 and --tlsv1.3. --tls-max requires that the underlying libcurl was built to support
TLS. Added in 7.54.0.
--tls13-ciphers <ciphersuite list>
(TLS) Specifies which cipher suites to use in the connection if it negotiates TLS 1.3. The list of ciphers suites
must specify valid ciphers. Read up on TLS 1.3 cipher suite details on this URL:
https://curl.se/docs/ssl-ciphers.html
This option is currently used only when curl is built to use OpenSSL 1.1.1 or later. If you are using a different SSL
backend you can try setting TLS 1.3 cipher suites by using the --ciphers option.
If --tls13-ciphers is provided several times, the last set value will be used.
Example:
curl --tls13-ciphers TLS_AES_128_GCM_SHA256 https://example.com
See also --ciphers and --curves. Added in 7.61.0.
--tlsauthtype <type>
Set TLS authentication type. Currently, the only supported option is "SRP", for TLS-SRP (RFC 5054). If --tlsuser and
--tlspassword are specified but --tlsauthtype is not, then this option defaults to "SRP". This option works only if
the underlying libcurl is built with TLS-SRP support, which requires OpenSSL or GnuTLS with TLS-SRP support.
If --tlsauthtype is provided several times, the last set value will be used.
Example:
curl --tlsauthtype SRP https://example.com
See also --tlsuser.
--tlspassword <string>
Set password for use with the TLS authentication method specified with --tlsauthtype. Requires that --tlsuser also be
set.
This option does not work with TLS 1.3.
If --tlspassword is provided several times, the last set value will be used.
Example:
curl --tlspassword pwd --tlsuser user https://example.com
See also --tlsuser.
--tlsuser <name>
Set username for use with the TLS authentication method specified with --tlsauthtype. Requires that --tlspassword
also is set.
This option does not work with TLS 1.3.
If --tlsuser is provided several times, the last set value will be used.
Example:
curl --tlspassword pwd --tlsuser user https://example.com
See also --tlspassword.
--tlsv1.0
(TLS) Forces curl to use TLS version 1.0 or later when connecting to a remote TLS server.
In old versions of curl this option was documented to allow _only_ TLS 1.0. That behavior was inconsistent depending
on the TLS library. Use --tls-max if you want to set a maximum TLS version.
Providing --tlsv1.0 multiple times has no extra effect.
Example:
curl --tlsv1.0 https://example.com
See also --tlsv1.3. Added in 7.34.0.
--tlsv1.1
(TLS) Forces curl to use TLS version 1.1 or later when connecting to a remote TLS server.
In old versions of curl this option was documented to allow _only_ TLS 1.1. That behavior was inconsistent depending
on the TLS library. Use --tls-max if you want to set a maximum TLS version.
Providing --tlsv1.1 multiple times has no extra effect.
Example:
curl --tlsv1.1 https://example.com
See also --tlsv1.3 and --tls-max. Added in 7.34.0.
--tlsv1.2
(TLS) Forces curl to use TLS version 1.2 or later when connecting to a remote TLS server.
In old versions of curl this option was documented to allow _only_ TLS 1.2. That behavior was inconsistent depending
on the TLS library. Use --tls-max if you want to set a maximum TLS version.
Providing --tlsv1.2 multiple times has no extra effect.
Example:
curl --tlsv1.2 https://example.com
See also --tlsv1.3 and --tls-max. Added in 7.34.0.
--tlsv1.3
(TLS) Forces curl to use TLS version 1.3 or later when connecting to a remote TLS server.
If the connection is done without TLS, this option has no effect. This includes QUIC-using (HTTP/3) transfers.
Note that TLS 1.3 is not supported by all TLS backends.
Providing --tlsv1.3 multiple times has no extra effect.
Example:
curl --tlsv1.3 https://example.com
See also --tlsv1.2 and --tls-max. Added in 7.52.0.
-1, --tlsv1
(SSL) Tells curl to use at least TLS version 1.x when negotiating with a remote TLS server. That means TLS version
1.0 or higher
Providing -1, --tlsv1 multiple times has no extra effect.
Example:
curl --tlsv1 https://example.com
See also --http1.1 and --http2. -1, --tlsv1 requires that the underlying libcurl was built to support TLS. This op‐
tion is mutually exclusive to --tlsv1.1 and --tlsv1.2 and --tlsv1.3.
--tr-encoding
(HTTP) Request a compressed Transfer-Encoding response using one of the algorithms curl supports, and uncompress the
data while receiving it.
Providing --tr-encoding multiple times has no extra effect. Disable it again with --no-tr-encoding.
Example:
curl --tr-encoding https://example.com
See also --compressed.
--trace-ascii <file>
Enables a full trace dump of all incoming and outgoing data, including descriptive information, to the given output
file. Use "-" as filename to have the output sent to stdout.
This is similar to --trace, but leaves out the hex part and only shows the ASCII part of the dump. It makes smaller
output that might be easier to read for untrained humans.
This option is global and does not need to be specified for each use of -:, --next.
If --trace-ascii is provided several times, the last set value will be used.
Example:
curl --trace-ascii log.txt https://example.com
See also -v, --verbose and --trace. This option is mutually exclusive to --trace and -v, --verbose.
--trace-time
Prepends a time stamp to each trace or verbose line that curl displays.
This option is global and does not need to be specified for each use of -:, --next.
Providing --trace-time multiple times has no extra effect. Disable it again with --no-trace-time.
Example:
curl --trace-time --trace-ascii output https://example.com
See also --trace and -v, --verbose.
--trace <file>
Enables a full trace dump of all incoming and outgoing data, including descriptive information, to the given output
file. Use "-" as filename to have the output sent to stdout. Use "%" as filename to have the output sent to stderr.
This option is global and does not need to be specified for each use of -:, --next.
If --trace is provided several times, the last set value will be used.
Example:
curl --trace log.txt https://example.com
See also --trace-ascii and --trace-time. This option is mutually exclusive to -v, --verbose and --trace-ascii.
--unix-socket <path>
(HTTP) Connect through this Unix domain socket, instead of using the network.
If --unix-socket is provided several times, the last set value will be used.
Example:
curl --unix-socket socket-path https://example.com
See also --abstract-unix-socket. Added in 7.40.0.
-T, --upload-file <file>
This transfers the specified local file to the remote URL. If there is no file part in the specified URL, curl will
append the local file name. NOTE that you must use a trailing / on the last directory to really prove to Curl that
there is no file name or curl will think that your last directory name is the remote file name to use. That will most
likely cause the upload operation to fail. If this is used on an HTTP(S) server, the PUT command will be used.
Use the file name "-" (a single dash) to use stdin instead of a given file. Alternately, the file name "." (a single
period) may be specified instead of "-" to use stdin in non-blocking mode to allow reading server output while stdin
is being uploaded.
You can specify one -T, --upload-file for each URL on the command line. Each -T, --upload-file + URL pair specifies
what to upload and to where. curl also supports "globbing" of the -T, --upload-file argument, meaning that you can
upload multiple files to a single URL by using the same URL globbing style supported in the URL.
When uploading to an SMTP server: the uploaded data is assumed to be RFC 5322 formatted. It has to feature the neces‐
sary set of headers and mail body formatted correctly by the user as curl will not transcode nor encode it further in
any way.
-T, --upload-file can be used several times in a command line
Examples:
curl -T file https://example.com
curl -T "img[1-1000].png" ftp://ftp.example.com/
curl --upload-file "{file1,file2}" https://example.com
See also -G, --get and -I, --head.
--url-query <data>
(all) This option adds a piece of data, usually a name + value pair, to the end of the URL query part. The syntax is
identical to that used for --data-urlencode with one extension:
If the argument starts with a '+' (plus), the rest of the string is provided as-is unencoded.
The query part of a URL is the one following the question mark on the right end.
--url-query can be used several times in a command line
Examples:
curl --url-query name=val https://example.com
curl --url-query =encodethis http://example.net/foo
curl --url-query name@file https://example.com
curl --url-query @fileonly https://example.com
curl --url-query "+name=%20foo" https://example.com
See also --data-urlencode and -G, --get. Added in 7.87.0.
--url <url>
Specify a URL to fetch. This option is mostly handy when you want to specify URL(s) in a config file.
If the given URL is missing a scheme name (such as "http://" or "ftp://" etc) then curl will make a guess based on
the host. If the outermost sub-domain name matches DICT, FTP, IMAP, LDAP, POP3 or SMTP then that protocol will be
used, otherwise HTTP will be used. Since 7.45.0 guessing can be disabled by setting a default protocol, see --proto-
default for details.
To control where this URL is written, use the -o, --output or the -O, --remote-name options.
WARNING: On Windows, particular file:// accesses can be converted to network accesses by the operating system. Be‐
ware!
--url can be used several times in a command line
Example:
curl --url https://example.com
See also -:, --next and -K, --config.
-B, --use-ascii
(FTP LDAP) Enable ASCII transfer. For FTP, this can also be enforced by using a URL that ends with ";type=A". This
option causes data sent to stdout to be in text mode for win32 systems.
Providing -B, --use-ascii multiple times has no extra effect. Disable it again with --no-use-ascii.
Example:
curl -B ftp://example.com/README
See also --crlf and --data-ascii.
-A, --user-agent <name>
(HTTP) Specify the User-Agent string to send to the HTTP server. To encode blanks in the string, surround the string
with single quote marks. This header can also be set with the -H, --header or the --proxy-header options.
If you give an empty argument to -A, --user-agent (""), it will remove the header completely from the request. If you
prefer a blank header, you can set it to a single space (" ").
If -A, --user-agent is provided several times, the last set value will be used.
Example:
curl -A "Agent 007" https://example.com
See also -H, --header and --proxy-header.
-u, --user <user:password>
Specify the user name and password to use for server authentication. Overrides -n, --netrc and --netrc-optional.
If you simply specify the user name, curl will prompt for a password.
The user name and passwords are split up on the first colon, which makes it impossible to use a colon in the user
name with this option. The password can, still.
On systems where it works, curl will hide the given option argument from process listings. This is not enough to pro‐
tect credentials from possibly getting seen by other users on the same system as they will still be visible for a mo‐
ment before cleared. Such sensitive data should be retrieved from a file instead or similar and never used in clear
text in a command line.
When using Kerberos V5 with a Windows based server you should include the Windows domain name in the user name, in
order for the server to successfully obtain a Kerberos Ticket. If you do not, then the initial authentication hand‐
shake may fail.
When using NTLM, the user name can be specified simply as the user name, without the domain, if there is a single do‐
main and forest in your setup for example.
To specify the domain name use either Down-Level Logon Name or UPN (User Principal Name) formats. For example, EXAM‐
PLE\user and user@example.com respectively.
If you use a Windows SSPI-enabled curl binary and perform Kerberos V5, Negotiate, NTLM or Digest authentication then
you can tell curl to select the user name and password from your environment by specifying a single colon with this
option: "-u :".
If -u, --user is provided several times, the last set value will be used.
Example:
curl -u user:secret https://example.com
See also -n, --netrc and -K, --config.
-v, --verbose
Makes curl verbose during the operation. Useful for debugging and seeing what's going on "under the hood". A line
starting with '>' means "header data" sent by curl, '<' means "header data" received by curl that is hidden in normal
cases, and a line starting with '*' means additional info provided by curl.
If you only want HTTP headers in the output, -i, --include might be the option you are looking for.
If you think this option still does not give you enough details, consider using --trace or --trace-ascii instead.
This option is global and does not need to be specified for each use of -:, --next.
Use -s, --silent to make curl really quiet.
Providing -v, --verbose multiple times has no extra effect. Disable it again with --no-verbose.
Example:
curl --verbose https://example.com
See also -i, --include. This option is mutually exclusive to --trace and --trace-ascii.
-V, --version
Displays information about curl and the libcurl version it uses.
The first line includes the full version of curl, libcurl and other 3rd party libraries linked with the executable.
The second line (starts with "Protocols:") shows all protocols that libcurl reports to support.
The third line (starts with "Features:") shows specific features libcurl reports to offer. Available features in‐
clude:
alt-svc
Support for the Alt-Svc: header is provided.
AsynchDNS
This curl uses asynchronous name resolves. Asynchronous name resolves can be done using either the c-ares or
the threaded resolver backends.
brotli Support for automatic brotli compression over HTTP(S).
CharConv
curl was built with support for character set conversions (like EBCDIC)
Debug This curl uses a libcurl built with Debug. This enables more error-tracking and memory debugging etc. For
curl-developers only!
gsasl The built-in SASL authentication includes extensions to support SCRAM because libcurl was built with libgsasl.
GSS-API
GSS-API is supported.
HSTS HSTS support is present.
HTTP2 HTTP/2 support has been built-in.
HTTP3 HTTP/3 support has been built-in.
HTTPS-proxy
This curl is built to support HTTPS proxy.
IDN This curl supports IDN - international domain names.
IPv6 You can use IPv6 with this.
Kerberos
Kerberos V5 authentication is supported.
Largefile
This curl supports transfers of large files, files larger than 2GB.
libz Automatic decompression (via gzip, deflate) of compressed files over HTTP is supported.
MultiSSL
This curl supports multiple TLS backends.
NTLM NTLM authentication is supported.
NTLM_WB
NTLM delegation to winbind helper is supported.
PSL PSL is short for Public Suffix List and means that this curl has been built with knowledge about "public suf‐
fixes".
SPNEGO SPNEGO authentication is supported.
SSL SSL versions of various protocols are supported, such as HTTPS, FTPS, POP3S and so on.
SSPI SSPI is supported.
TLS-SRP
SRP (Secure Remote Password) authentication is supported for TLS.
TrackMemory
Debug memory tracking is supported.
Unicode
Unicode support on Windows.
UnixSockets
Unix sockets support is provided.
zstd Automatic decompression (via zstd) of compressed files over HTTP is supported.
Example:
curl --version
See also -h, --help and -M, --manual.
-w, --write-out <format>
Make curl display information on stdout after a completed transfer. The format is a string that may contain plain
text mixed with any number of variables. The format can be specified as a literal "string", or you can have curl read
the format from a file with "@filename" and to tell curl to read the format from stdin you write "@-".
The variables present in the output format will be substituted by the value or text that curl thinks fit, as de‐
scribed below. All variables are specified as %{variable_name} and to output a normal % you just write them as %%.
You can output a newline by using \n, a carriage return with \r and a tab space with \t.
The output will be written to standard output, but this can be switched to standard error by using %{stderr}.
Output HTTP headers from the most recent request by using %header{name} where name is the case insensitive name of
the header (without the trailing colon). The header contents are exactly as sent over the network, with leading and
trailing whitespace trimmed. Added in curl 7.84.0.
NOTE: In Windows the %-symbol is a special symbol used to expand environment variables. In batch files all occur‐
rences of % must be doubled when using this option to properly escape. If this option is used at the command prompt
then the % cannot be escaped and unintended expansion is possible.
The variables available are:
certs Output the certificate chain with details. Supported only by the OpenSSL, GnuTLS, Schannel, NSS, GSKit
and Secure Transport backends (Added in 7.88.0)
content_type The Content-Type of the requested document, if there was any.
errormsg The error message. (Added in 7.75.0)
exitcode The numerical exitcode of the transfer. (Added in 7.75.0)
filename_effective
The ultimate filename that curl writes out to. This is only meaningful if curl is told to write to a
file with the -O, --remote-name or -o, --output option. It's most useful in combination with the -J,
--remote-header-name option.
ftp_entry_path The initial path curl ended up in when logging on to the remote FTP server.
header_json A JSON object with all HTTP response headers from the recent transfer. Values are provided as arrays,
since in the case of multiple headers there can be multiple values. (Added in 7.83.0)
The header names provided in lowercase, listed in order of appearance over the wire. Except for dupli‐
cated headers. They are grouped on the first occurrence of that header, each value is presented in the
JSON array.
http_code The numerical response code that was found in the last retrieved HTTP(S) or FTP(s) transfer.
http_connect The numerical code that was found in the last response (from a proxy) to a curl CONNECT request.
http_version The http version that was effectively used. (Added in 7.50.0)
json A JSON object with all available keys.
local_ip The IP address of the local end of the most recently done connection - can be either IPv4 or IPv6.
local_port The local port number of the most recently done connection.
method The http method used in the most recent HTTP request. (Added in 7.72.0)
num_certs Number of server certificates received in the TLS handshake. Supported only by the OpenSSL, GnuTLS,
Schannel, NSS, GSKit and Secure Transport backends (Added in 7.88.0)
num_connects Number of new connects made in the recent transfer.
num_headers The number of response headers in the most recent request (restarted at each redirect). Note that the
status line IS NOT a header. (Added in 7.73.0)
num_redirects Number of redirects that were followed in the request.
onerror The rest of the output is only shown if the transfer returned a non-zero error (Added in 7.75.0)
proxy_ssl_verify_result
The result of the HTTPS proxy's SSL peer certificate verification that was requested. 0 means the ver‐
ification was successful. (Added in 7.52.0)
redirect_url When an HTTP request was made without -L, --location to follow redirects (or when --max-redirs is
met), this variable will show the actual URL a redirect would have gone to.
referer The Referer: header, if there was any. (Added in 7.76.0)
remote_ip The remote IP address of the most recently done connection - can be either IPv4 or IPv6.
remote_port The remote port number of the most recently done connection.
response_code The numerical response code that was found in the last transfer (formerly known as "http_code").
scheme The URL scheme (sometimes called protocol) that was effectively used. (Added in 7.52.0)
size_download The total amount of bytes that were downloaded. This is the size of the body/data that was trans‐
ferred, excluding headers.
size_header The total amount of bytes of the downloaded headers.
size_request The total amount of bytes that were sent in the HTTP request.
size_upload The total amount of bytes that were uploaded. This is the size of the body/data that was transferred,
excluding headers.
speed_download The average download speed that curl measured for the complete download. Bytes per second.
speed_upload The average upload speed that curl measured for the complete upload. Bytes per second.
ssl_verify_result
The result of the SSL peer certificate verification that was requested. 0 means the verification was
successful.
stderr From this point on, the -w, --write-out output will be written to standard error. (Added in 7.63.0)
stdout From this point on, the -w, --write-out output will be written to standard output. This is the de‐
fault, but can be used to switch back after switching to stderr. (Added in 7.63.0)
time_appconnect
The time, in seconds, it took from the start until the SSL/SSH/etc connect/handshake to the remote
host was completed.
time_connect The time, in seconds, it took from the start until the TCP connect to the remote host (or proxy) was
completed.
time_namelookup
The time, in seconds, it took from the start until the name resolving was completed.
time_pretransfer
The time, in seconds, it took from the start until the file transfer was just about to begin. This in‐
cludes all pre-transfer commands and negotiations that are specific to the particular protocol(s) in‐
volved.
time_redirect The time, in seconds, it took for all redirection steps including name lookup, connect, pretransfer
and transfer before the final transaction was started. time_redirect shows the complete execution time
for multiple redirections.
time_starttransfer
The time, in seconds, it took from the start until the first byte was just about to be transferred.
This includes time_pretransfer and also the time the server needed to calculate the result.
time_total The total time, in seconds, that the full operation lasted.
url The URL that was fetched. (Added in 7.75.0)
urlnum The URL index number of this transfer, 0-indexed. De-globbed URLs share the same index number as the
origin globbed URL. (Added in 7.75.0)
url_effective The URL that was fetched last. This is most meaningful if you have told curl to follow location: head‐
ers.
If -w, --write-out is provided several times, the last set value will be used.
Example:
curl -w '%{http_code}\n' https://example.com
See also -v, --verbose and -I, --head.
--xattr
When saving output to a file, this option tells curl to store certain file metadata in extended file attributes. Cur‐
rently, the URL is stored in the xdg.origin.url attribute and, for HTTP, the content type is stored in the mime_type
attribute. If the file system does not support extended attributes, a warning is issued.
Providing --xattr multiple times has no extra effect. Disable it again with --no-xattr.
Example:
curl --xattr -o storage https://example.com
See also -R, --remote-time, -w, --write-out and -v, --verbose.
FILES
~/.curlrc
Default config file, see -K, --config for details.
ENVIRONMENT
The environment variables can be specified in lower case or upper case. The lower case version has precedence. http_proxy is
an exception as it is only available in lower case.
Using an environment variable to set the proxy has the same effect as using the -x, --proxy option.
http_proxy [protocol://]<host>[:port]
Sets the proxy server to use for HTTP.
HTTPS_PROXY [protocol://]<host>[:port]
Sets the proxy server to use for HTTPS.
[url-protocol]_PROXY [protocol://]<host>[:port]
Sets the proxy server to use for [url-protocol], where the protocol is a protocol that curl supports and as specified
in a URL. FTP, FTPS, POP3, IMAP, SMTP, LDAP, etc.
ALL_PROXY [protocol://]<host>[:port]
Sets the proxy server to use if no protocol-specific proxy is set.
NO_PROXY <comma-separated list of hosts/domains>
list of host names that should not go through any proxy. If set to an asterisk '*' only, it matches all hosts. Each
name in this list is matched as either a domain name which contains the hostname, or the hostname itself.
This environment variable disables use of the proxy even when specified with the -x, --proxy option. That is
NO_PROXY=direct.example.com curl -x http://proxy.example.com http://direct.example.com accesses the target URL di‐
rectly, and NO_PROXY=direct.example.com curl -x http://proxy.example.com http://somewhere.example.com accesses the
target URL through the proxy.
The list of host names can also be include numerical IP addresses, and IPv6 versions should then be given without en‐
closing brackets.
Since 7.86.0, IP addresses can be specified using CIDR notation: an appended slash and number specifies the number of
"network bits" out of the address to use in the comparison. For example "192.168.0.0/16" would match all addresses
starting with "192.168".
APPDATA <dir>
On Windows, this variable is used when trying to find the home directory. If the primary home variable are all unset.
COLUMNS <terminal width>
If set, the specified number of characters will be used as the terminal width when the alternative progress-bar is
shown. If not set, curl will try to figure it out using other ways.
CURL_CA_BUNDLE <file>
If set, will be used as the --cacert value.
CURL_HOME <dir>
If set, is the first variable curl checks when trying to find its home directory. If not set, it continues to check
XDG_CONFIG_HOME
CURL_SSL_BACKEND <TLS backend>
If curl was built with support for "MultiSSL", meaning that it has built-in support for more than one TLS backend,
this environment variable can be set to the case insensitive name of the particular backend to use when curl is in‐
voked. Setting a name that is not a built-in alternative will make curl stay with the default.
SSL backend names (case-insensitive): bearssl, gnutls, gskit, mbedtls, nss, openssl, rustls, schannel, secure-trans‐
port, wolfssl
HOME <dir>
If set, this is used to find the home directory when that is needed. Like when looking for the default .curlrc.
CURL_HOME and XDG_CONFIG_HOME have preference.
QLOGDIR <directory name>
If curl was built with HTTP/3 support, setting this environment variable to a local directory will make curl produce
qlogs in that directory, using file names named after the destination connection id (in hex). Do note that these
files can become rather large. Works with both QUIC backends.
SHELL Used on VMS when trying to detect if using a DCL or a "unix" shell.
SSL_CERT_DIR <dir>
If set, will be used as the --capath value.
SSL_CERT_FILE <path>
If set, will be used as the --cacert value.
SSLKEYLOGFILE <file name>
If you set this environment variable to a file name, curl will store TLS secrets from its connections in that file
when invoked to enable you to analyze the TLS traffic in real time using network analyzing tools such as Wireshark.
This works with the following TLS backends: OpenSSL, libressl, BoringSSL, GnuTLS, NSS and wolfSSL.
USERPROFILE <dir>
On Windows, this variable is used when trying to find the home directory. If the other, primary, variable are all un‐
set. If set, curl will use the path "$USERPROFILE\Application Data".
XDG_CONFIG_HOME <dir>
If CURL_HOME is not set, this variable is checked when looking for a default .curlrc file.
PROXY PROTOCOL PREFIXES
The proxy string may be specified with a protocol:// prefix to specify alternative proxy protocols.
If no protocol is specified in the proxy string or if the string does not match a supported one, the proxy will be treated
as an HTTP proxy.
The supported proxy protocol prefixes are as follows:
http://
Makes it use it as an HTTP proxy. The default if no scheme prefix is used.
https://
Makes it treated as an HTTPS proxy.
socks4://
Makes it the equivalent of --socks4
socks4a://
Makes it the equivalent of --socks4a
socks5://
Makes it the equivalent of --socks5
socks5h://
Makes it the equivalent of --socks5-hostname
EXIT CODES
There are a bunch of different error codes and their corresponding error messages that may appear under error conditions. At
the time of this writing, the exit codes are:
0 Success. The operation completed successfully according to the instructions.
1 Unsupported protocol. This build of curl has no support for this protocol.
2 Failed to initialize.
3 URL malformed. The syntax was not correct.
4 A feature or option that was needed to perform the desired request was not enabled or was explicitly disabled at
build-time. To make curl able to do this, you probably need another build of libcurl.
5 Could not resolve proxy. The given proxy host could not be resolved.
6 Could not resolve host. The given remote host could not be resolved.
7 Failed to connect to host.
8 Weird server reply. The server sent data curl could not parse.
9 FTP access denied. The server denied login or denied access to the particular resource or directory you wanted to
reach. Most often you tried to change to a directory that does not exist on the server.
10 FTP accept failed. While waiting for the server to connect back when an active FTP session is used, an error code was
sent over the control connection or similar.
11 FTP weird PASS reply. Curl could not parse the reply sent to the PASS request.
12 During an active FTP session while waiting for the server to connect back to curl, the timeout expired.
13 FTP weird PASV reply, Curl could not parse the reply sent to the PASV request.
14 FTP weird 227 format. Curl could not parse the 227-line the server sent.
15 FTP cannot use host. Could not resolve the host IP we got in the 227-line.
16 HTTP/2 error. A problem was detected in the HTTP2 framing layer. This is somewhat generic and can be one out of sev‐
eral problems, see the error message for details.
17 FTP could not set binary. Could not change transfer method to binary.
18 Partial file. Only a part of the file was transferred.
19 FTP could not download/access the given file, the RETR (or similar) command failed.
21 FTP quote error. A quote command returned error from the server.
22 HTTP page not retrieved. The requested URL was not found or returned another error with the HTTP error code being 400
or above. This return code only appears if -f, --fail is used.
23 Write error. Curl could not write data to a local filesystem or similar.
25 FTP could not STOR file. The server denied the STOR operation, used for FTP uploading.
26 Read error. Various reading problems.
27 Out of memory. A memory allocation request failed.
28 Operation timeout. The specified time-out period was reached according to the conditions.
30 FTP PORT failed. The PORT command failed. Not all FTP servers support the PORT command, try doing a transfer using
PASV instead!
31 FTP could not use REST. The REST command failed. This command is used for resumed FTP transfers.
33 HTTP range error. The range "command" did not work.
34 HTTP post error. Internal post-request generation error.
35 SSL connect error. The SSL handshaking failed.
36 Bad download resume. Could not continue an earlier aborted download.
37 FILE could not read file. Failed to open the file. Permissions?
38 LDAP cannot bind. LDAP bind operation failed.
39 LDAP search failed.
41 Function not found. A required LDAP function was not found.
42 Aborted by callback. An application told curl to abort the operation.
43 Internal error. A function was called with a bad parameter.
45 Interface error. A specified outgoing interface could not be used.
47 Too many redirects. When following redirects, curl hit the maximum amount.
48 Unknown option specified to libcurl. This indicates that you passed a weird option to curl that was passed on to
libcurl and rejected. Read up in the manual!
49 Malformed telnet option.
52 The server did not reply anything, which here is considered an error.
53 SSL crypto engine not found.
54 Cannot set SSL crypto engine as default.
55 Failed sending network data.
56 Failure in receiving network data.
58 Problem with the local certificate.
59 Could not use specified SSL cipher.
60 Peer certificate cannot be authenticated with known CA certificates.
61 Unrecognized transfer encoding.
63 Maximum file size exceeded.
64 Requested FTP SSL level failed.
65 Sending the data requires a rewind that failed.
66 Failed to initialise SSL Engine.
67 The user name, password, or similar was not accepted and curl failed to log in.
68 File not found on TFTP server.
69 Permission problem on TFTP server.
70 Out of disk space on TFTP server.
71 Illegal TFTP operation.
72 Unknown TFTP transfer ID.
73 File already exists (TFTP).
74 No such user (TFTP).
77 Problem reading the SSL CA cert (path? access rights?).
78 The resource referenced in the URL does not exist.
79 An unspecified error occurred during the SSH session.
80 Failed to shut down the SSL connection.
82 Could not load CRL file, missing or wrong format.
83 Issuer check failed.
84 The FTP PRET command failed.
85 Mismatch of RTSP CSeq numbers.
86 Mismatch of RTSP Session Identifiers.
87 Unable to parse FTP file list.
88 FTP chunk callback reported error.
89 No connection available, the session will be queued.
90 SSL public key does not matched pinned public key.
91 Invalid SSL certificate status.
92 Stream error in HTTP/2 framing layer.
93 An API function was called from inside a callback.
94 An authentication function returned an error.
95 A problem was detected in the HTTP/3 layer. This is somewhat generic and can be one out of several problems, see the
error message for details.
96 QUIC connection error. This error may be caused by an SSL library error. QUIC is the protocol used for HTTP/3 trans‐
fers.
XX More error codes will appear here in future releases. The existing ones are meant to never change.
BUGS
If you experience any problems with curl, submit an issue in the project's bug tracker on GitHub:
https://github.com/curl/curl/issues
AUTHORS / CONTRIBUTORS
Daniel Stenberg is the main author, but the whole list of contributors is found in the separate THANKS file.
WWW
https://curl.se
SEE ALSO
ftp(1), wget(1)
curl 7.88.1 February 19 2023 curl(1)