cURL GET Request: Examples & Options

The cURL GET request is the most fundamental HTTP operation. GET requests retrieve data from a server and are the default method cURL uses. This guide covers every option and scenario for making GET requests with cURL, from basic fetches to advanced configurations.

Basic GET Request

GET is the default HTTP method in cURL — you do not need to specify it explicitly.

# Simple GET request
curl https://api.example.com/users

Explicit GET method (not necessary, but explicit)
curl -X GET https://api.example.com/users

GET with output saved to file
curl -o users.json https://api.example.com/users

GET Request with Query Parameters

# Query parameters in the URL
curl "https://api.example.com/users?page=1&limit=10&sort=name"

URL-encode special characters with --data-urlencode and -G
curl -G \
--data-urlencode "search=hello world" \
--data-urlencode "category=books & media" \
https://api.example.com/search

The -G flag converts -d/--data-urlencode to query parameters instead of POST body

GET with Custom Headers

# Accept JSON response
curl -H "Accept: application/json" https://api.example.com/users

Multiple headers
curl -H "Accept: application/json" \
-H "Authorization: Bearer TOKEN" \
-H "X-Request-ID: 12345" \
https://api.example.com/users

Set User-Agent
curl -A "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) Chrome/120.0.0.0" \
https://example.com

Viewing Response Details

# Response body only (default)
curl https://api.example.com/users

Headers only
curl -I https://api.example.com/users

Headers + body
curl -i https://api.example.com/users

Verbose output (shows request and response headers)
curl -v https://api.example.com/users

Show only HTTP status code
curl -s -o /dev/null -w "%{http_code}" https://api.example.com/users

Show status code and content type
curl -s -o /dev/null -w "Code: %{http_code}\nType: %{content_type}\nSize: %{size_download}\n" \
https://api.example.com/users

GET with Authentication

# Basic authentication
curl -u username:password https://api.example.com/protected

Bearer token
curl -H "Authorization: Bearer eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIs..." https://api.example.com/data

API key in header
curl -H "X-API-Key: your-api-key" https://api.example.com/data

API key in query string
curl "https://api.example.com/data?api_key=your-api-key"

GET Through a Proxy

# HTTP proxy
curl -x http://proxy:8080 https://api.example.com/users

Authenticated proxy
curl -x http://user:pass@proxy:8080 https://api.example.com/users

SOCKS5 proxy
curl --socks5-hostname user:pass@proxy:1080 https://api.example.com/users

Using residential proxies with GET requests is common for web scraping, allowing you to rotate IPs and avoid blocks.

Following Redirects

# Follow redirects (3xx responses)
curl -L https://example.com/old-url

Follow redirects with a limit
curl -L --max-redirs 5 https://example.com/old-url

Show redirect chain
curl -L -v https://example.com/old-url 2>&1 | grep "< HTTP\|< location"

Handling JSON Responses

# Pretty-print JSON (pipe to jq)
curl -s https://api.example.com/users | jq .

Extract specific field
curl -s https://api.example.com/users | jq '.[0].name'

Filter results
curl -s https://api.example.com/users | jq '.[] | select(.active == true)'

Count results
curl -s https://api.example.com/users | jq length

Timeout and Retry

# Set connection timeout (seconds)
curl --connect-timeout 10 https://api.example.com/users

Set maximum time for entire operation
curl --max-time 30 https://api.example.com/users

Retry on failure
curl --retry 3 --retry-delay 5 https://api.example.com/users

Cookies with GET Requests

# Send cookies
curl -b "session=abc123; theme=dark" https://example.com

Load cookies from file
curl -b cookies.txt https://example.com

Save cookies from response
curl -c cookies.txt https://example.com

Conditional GET Requests

# Only fetch if modified since a date
curl -H "If-Modified-Since: Mon, 01 Jan 2024 00:00:00 GMT" https://example.com

Only fetch if ETag has changed
curl -H 'If-None-Match: "etag-value"' https://api.example.com/data

Both return 304 Not Modified if content hasn't changed

Parallel GET Requests

# Sequential (slow)
curl https://api.example.com/page/1
curl https://api.example.com/page/2
curl https://api.example.com/page/3

Parallel with xargs
echo "1 2 3 4 5" | xargs -n1 -P5 -I{} curl -s -o "page_{}.json" "https://api.example.com/page/{}"

Parallel with GNU parallel
parallel curl -s -o "page_{}.json" "https://api.example.com/page/{}" ::: {1..10}

Python Equivalent

import requests

Basic GET
response = requests.get("https://api.example.com/users")
print(response.json())

With headers
headers = {
"Accept": "application/json",
"Authorization": "Bearer TOKEN"
}
response = requests.get("https://api.example.com/users", headers=headers)

With query parameters
params = {"page": 1, "limit": 10, "sort": "name"}
response = requests.get("https://api.example.com/users", params=params)

With proxy
proxies = {"https": "http://user:pass@proxy:8080"}
response = requests.get("https://api.example.com/users", proxies=proxies)

Common GET Request Patterns

FAQ

Do I need -X GET with cURL?

No. GET is the default method. Using -X GET is redundant but harmless. Only specify -X when using POST, PUT, PATCH, or DELETE.

How do I send GET request data in the body?

While technically possible with -d and -X GET, sending a body with GET requests is non-standard and many servers ignore it. Use query parameters instead.

Why does my GET request return HTML instead of JSON?

The server may default to HTML. Add -H "Accept: application/json" to request JSON format. Some APIs also use different URLs or extensions (.json) for different formats.

How do I handle pagination with cURL?

Use a bash loop: for i in $(seq 1 10); do curl -s "https://api.example.com/data?page=$i" >> results.json; done