Curl Download Empty File //top\\ May 2026

Use the -L or --location flag to tell curl to follow redirects until it reaches the final destination. curl -L -O https://example.com Use code with caution. 2. Missing Authentication

The most frequent cause of an empty file is a . When a server moves a file, it sends a redirect header instead of the file content. By default, curl does not follow these redirects and simply saves the empty body of the redirect response. curl download empty file

If your URL contains special characters like & or ? and you do not wrap it in quotes, your shell (like Bash or Zsh) may interpret them as background operators. This cuts the URL short, leading curl to request the wrong (and potentially empty) resource. Always wrap your URLs in double quotes . curl -o "data.csv" "https://example.com" Use code with caution. 4. Connection Timeouts and Server Errors Use the -L or --location flag to tell