HEAD
HEAD
The HEAD
requests the headers that would be returned if the HEAD
request's URL was instead requested with the HTTP GET
method. For example, if a URL might produce a large download, a HEAD
request could read its Content-Length
header to check the filesize without actually downloading the file.
Warning: A response to a HEAD
method should not have a body. If it has one anyway, that body must be ignored: any representation headers that might describe the erroneous body are instead assumed to describe the response which a similar GET
request would have received.
If the response to a HEAD
request shows that a cached URL response is now outdated, the cached copy is invalidated even if no GET
request was made.
Request has body | No |
---|---|
Successful response has body | No |
Safe | Yes |
Idempotent | Yes |
Cacheable | Yes |
Allowed in HTML forms | No |
Syntax
HEAD /index.html
Specifications
Browser compatibility
Desktop | Mobile | |||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Chrome | Edge | Firefox | Internet Explorer | Opera | Safari | WebView Android | Chrome Android | Firefox for Android | Opera Android | Safari on IOS | Samsung Internet | |
HEAD |
Yes |
12 |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
See also
© 2005–2021 MDN contributors.
Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License v2.5 or later.
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Methods/HEAD