The HTTP HEAD
method 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.
A response to a HEAD
method should not have a body. If it has one anyway, that body must be ignored: any entity 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request shows that a cached URL response is now outdated, the cached copy is invalidated even if no GET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
Specification | Title |
---|---|
RFC 7231, section 4.3.2: HEAD | Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP/1.1): Semantics and Content |
Browser compatibility
The compatibility table in this page is generated from structured data. If you'd like to contribute to the data, please check out https://github.com/mdn/browser-compat-data and send us a pull request.
Desktop | Mobile | |||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
HEAD | Chrome Full support Yes | Edge Full support 12 | Firefox Full support Yes | IE Full support Yes | Opera Full support Yes | Safari Full support Yes | WebView Android Full support Yes | Chrome Android Full support Yes | Firefox Android Full support Yes | Opera Android Full support Yes | Safari iOS Full support Yes | Samsung Internet Android Full support Yes |
Legend
- Full support
- Full support