cURL is widely used by developers, system administrators, and website owners to interact with web servers, make API requests, download files, and much more. When making requests, web servers don't just send back the data or content requested – they also send a set of HTTP headers. These headers offer valuable server response information, including meta-information, status, caching rules, and more.

Understanding HTTP headers is essential when diagnosing issues, optimizing performance, or inspecting security parameters. For instance, headers can give insights into server types, cache policies, security configurations, and redirection logic.

With cURL, you can easily fetch and examine these headers to better understand the behavior of web servers or applications. By default, cURL only displays the body of the response. However, you can instruct it to display headers for a more in-depth look into the server's response.

Related: How to view HTTP request headers when using cURL

Steps to view HTTP response headers using cURL:

  1. Open the terminal or command prompt on your computer.
  2. Make a standard cURL request to a desired URL. 

    $ curl onlineweb.tools

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>


    <meta charset="utf-8">
    <title> Simplified Guide </title>
##### snipped

    Note that only the response body or content is displayed.

  3. View the headers and the content using the -i or –include option. 

    $ curl -i onlineweb.tools
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Tue, 26 Sep 2023 08:36:01 GMT
Server: Apache
X-Powered-By: PHP/8.2.10
Vary: Cookie
Set-Cookie: DokuWiki=ka1l9l3j8d7i6rpj3ia3ppb13d; path=/; HttpOnly
Expires: Thu, 19 Nov 1981 08:52:00 GMT
Cache-Control: no-store, no-cache, must-revalidate
Pragma: no-cache
Set-Cookie: DW68700bfd16c2027de7de74a5a8202a6f=deleted; expires=Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:01 GMT; Max-Age=0; path=/; HttpOnly
Transfer-Encoding: chunked
Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8


<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>


    <meta charset="utf-8">
    <title> Simplified Guide </title>
##### snipped
  4. Only see headers and exclude the body using the -I or –head option. 

    $ curl -I onlineweb.tools
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Tue, 26 Sep 2023 08:36:46 GMT
Server: Apache
X-Powered-By: PHP/8.2.10
Vary: Cookie
Set-Cookie: DokuWiki=bin6f85ecq6bhlltr3vss3hm66; path=/; HttpOnly
Expires: Thu, 19 Nov 1981 08:52:00 GMT
Cache-Control: no-store, no-cache, must-revalidate
Pragma: no-cache
Set-Cookie: DW68700bfd16c2027de7de74a5a8202a6f=deleted; expires=Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:01 GMT; Max-Age=0; path=/; HttpOnly
Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8
  5. View verbose output, including request and response headers, using the -v or –verbose option. 

    $ curl -v onlineweb.tools
*   Trying 127.0.0.1:80...
* Connected to onlineweb.tools (127.0.0.1) port 80 (#0)
> GET / HTTP/1.1
> Host: onlineweb.tools
> User-Agent: curl/8.1.2
> Accept: */*
>
< HTTP/1.1 200 OK
< Date: Tue, 26 Sep 2023 08:37:09 GMT
< Server: Apache
< X-Powered-By: PHP/8.2.10
< Vary: Cookie
< Set-Cookie: DokuWiki=3uod8b4v0n3fmvi1aj6r3c0vp0; path=/; HttpOnly
< Expires: Thu, 19 Nov 1981 08:52:00 GMT
< Cache-Control: no-store, no-cache, must-revalidate
< Pragma: no-cache
< Set-Cookie: DW68700bfd16c2027de7de74a5a8202a6f=deleted; expires=Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:01 GMT; Max-Age=0; path=/; HttpOnly
< Transfer-Encoding: chunked
< Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8
<

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>


    <meta charset="utf-8">
    <title> Simplified Guide </title>
##### snippped

    Verbose mode is particularly useful for debugging connections, certificate issues, or understanding the full transaction process.

  6. Save the headers to a file using the -o or –output option followed by the filename. 

    $ curl -I onlineweb.tools -o headers.txt
  % Total    % Received % Xferd  Average Speed   Time    Time     Time  Current
                                 Dload  Upload   Total   Spent    Left  Speed
  0     0    0     0    0     0      0      0 --:--:-- --:--:-- --:--:--     0

    This method is helpful when dealing with extensive headers or when you want to document server responses.

  7. Examine the saved request header file. 

    $ cat headers.txt
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Tue, 26 Sep 2023 08:40:00 GMT
Server: Apache
X-Powered-By: PHP/8.2.10
Vary: Cookie
Set-Cookie: DokuWiki=1t1e1l3gn9qnm37c0j7dj01hki; path=/; HttpOnly
Expires: Thu, 19 Nov 1981 08:52:00 GMT
Cache-Control: no-store, no-cache, must-revalidate
Pragma: no-cache
Set-Cookie: DW68700bfd16c2027de7de74a5a8202a6f=deleted; expires=Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:01 GMT; Max-Age=0; path=/; HttpOnly
Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8