How to follow redirects with curl

How to follow redirects with curl

Follow HTTP 301 and 302 redirects automatically with curl using the -L flag.

Prerequisites

• curl installed.

Step-by-Step: Follow Redirects with curl

1. Add the -L (or --location) flag to make curl follow HTTP redirect responses (301, 302, 303, 307, 308):

   curl -L https://example.com/old-page

   Without -L, curl returns the redirect response body instead of following the new URL.

2. Limit the number of redirects to prevent infinite redirect loops:

   curl -L --max-redirs 5 https://example.com/old-page

3. Display each redirect step with verbose output:

   curl -L -v https://example.com/old-page 2>&1 | grep "< Location:"

How to Verify Redirects Are Followed

curl shows the final URL with -w:

curl -L -o /dev/null -s -w "Final URL: %{url_effective}\n" https://example.com/old-page