References OPTIONS

OPTIONS

The HTTP OPTIONS method requests

permitted communication options for a
given URL or server. A client can specify a
URL with this method, or an asterisk ( * ) to
refer to the entire server.

Request has body No

Successful response has body Yes

Safe Yes

Idempotent Yes

Cacheable No

Allowed in HTML forms No

Syntax
HTTP

OPTIONS /index.html HTTP/1.1

OPTIONS * HTTP/1.1

Examples

Identifying allowed request

methods
To find out which request methods a server
supports, one can use the curl command-
line program to issue an OPTIONS request:

BASH

curl -X OPTIONS
https://example.org -i

The response then contains an Allow

header that holds the allowed methods:

HTTP

HTTP/1.1 204 No Content

Allow: OPTIONS, GET, HEAD, POST
Cache-Control: max-age=604800
Date: Thu, 13 Oct 2016 11:45:00
GMT
Server: EOS (lax004/2813)

Preflighted requests in CORS

In CORS, a preflight request is sent with the
OPTIONS method so that the server can
respond if it is acceptable to send the
request. In this example, we will request
permission for these parameters:

The Access-Control-Request-Method
header sent in the preflight request
tells the server that when the actual
request is sent, it will have a POST
request method.

The Access-Control-Request-Headers
header tells the server that when the
actual request is sent, it will have the
X-PINGOTHER and Content-Type
headers.

HTTP

OPTIONS /resources/post-here/
HTTP/1.1
Host: bar.example
Accept:
text/html,application/xhtml+xml,ap
plication/xml;q=0.9,*/*;q=0.8
Accept-Language: en-us,en;q=0.5
Accept-Encoding: gzip,deflate
Connection: keep-alive
Origin: https://foo.example
Access-Control-Request-Method:
POST
Access-Control-Request-Headers: X-
PINGOTHER, Content-Type

The server now can respond if it will accept

a request under these circumstances. In
this example, the server response says
that:

Access-Control-Allow-Origin

The https://foo.example origin is

permitted to request the
bar.example/resources/post-here/ URL
via the following:

Access-Control-Allow-Methods

POST , GET , and OPTIONS are permitted

methods for the URL. (This header is
similar to the Allow response header,
but used only for CORS.)

Access-Control-Allow-Headers

X-PINGOTHER and Content-Type are

permitted request headers for the URL.

Access-Control-Max-Age

The above permissions may be cached

for 86,400 seconds (1 day).

HTTP

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Mon, 01 Dec 2008 01:15:39
GMT
Server: Apache/2.0.61 (Unix)
Access-Control-Allow-Origin:
https://foo.example
Access-Control-Allow-Methods:
POST, GET, OPTIONS
Access-Control-Allow-Headers: X-
PINGOTHER, Content-Type
Access-Control-Max-Age: 86400
Vary: Accept-Encoding, Origin
Keep-Alive: timeout=2, max=100
Connection: Keep-Alive

Status Code
Both 200 OK and 204 No Content are
permitted status codes , but some
browsers incorrectly believe 204 No
Content applies to the resource and do not
send the subsequent request to fetch it.

Specifications
Specification

HTTP Semantics
# OPTIONS

Browser compatibility
Report problems with this compatibility
data on GitHub
Chrome

Firefox

Opera

Safari
Edge

OPTIONS Yes 12 Yes Yes Yes

Tip: you can click/tap on a cell for more information.

Full support

See also
Allow header

CORS

Found a content problem with

this page?

Edit the page on GitHub.

Report the content issue.

View the source on GitHub.

Want to get more involved? Learn how

to contribute.

This page was last modified on May 15,

2023 by MDN contributors.

Your blueprint for a

better internet.

MDN Support

About Product help

Blog Report an issue

Careers

Advertise with us

Our communities Developers

MDN Community Web Technologies

MDN Forum Learn Web Development

MDN Chat MDN Plus

Hacks Blog

Website Privacy Notice Cookies Legal

Community Participation Guidelines

Visit Mozilla Corporation’s not-for-profit parent, the Mozilla Foundation.

Portions of this content are ©1998–2023 by individual mozilla.org
contributors. Content available under a Creative Commons license.