CURLOPT_ACCEPT_ENCODING(3) Library Functions Manual
NAME
CURLOPT_ACCEPT_ENCODING - automatic decompression of HTTP downloads
SYNOPSIS
#include <curl/curl.h>
CURLcode curl_easy_setopt(CURL *handle, CURLOPT_ACCEPT_ENCODING, char *enc);
DESCRIPTION
Pass a char pointer argument specifying what encoding you would like.
Sets the contents of the Accept-Encoding: header sent in an HTTP
request, and enables decoding of a response when a Content-Encoding:
header is received.
libcurl potentially supports several different compressed encodings
depending on what support that has been built-in.
To aid applications not having to bother about what specific algorithms
this particular libcurl build supports, libcurl allows a zero-length
string to be set ("") to ask for an Accept-Encoding: header to be used
that contains all built-in supported encodings.
Alternatively, you can specify exactly the encoding or list of
encodings you want in the response. The following encodings are
supported: identity, meaning non-compressed, deflate which requests the
server to compress its response using the zlib algorithm, gzip which
requests the gzip algorithm, (since curl 7.57.0) br which is brotli and
(since curl 7.72.0) zstd which is zstd. Provide them in the string as a
comma-separated list of accepted encodings, like: "br, gzip, deflate".
Set CURLOPT_ACCEPT_ENCODING(3) to NULL to explicitly disable it, which
makes libcurl not send an Accept-Encoding: header and not decompress
received contents automatically.
You can also opt to include the Accept-Encoding: header in your request
with = but then there is no automatic decompressing
when receiving data.
Setting this option is a request, not an order; the server may or may
not do it. It must be set (to any non-NULL value) or else any encoding
done by the server is ignored.
Servers might respond with Content-Encoding even without getting a
Accept-Encoding: in the request. Servers might respond with a different
Content-Encoding than what was asked for in the request.
The Content-Length: header field servers send for a compressed response
is supposed to indicate the length of the compressed content so when
auto decoding is enabled it may not match the sum of bytes reported by
the write callbacks (although, sending the length of the non-compressed
content is a common server mistake).
The application does not have to keep the string around after setting
this option.
Using this option multiple times makes the last set string override the
previous ones.
WARNING: when decompressing data, even tiny transfers might be expanded
and generate a huge amount of bytes.
HISTORY
This option was called CURLOPT_ENCODING before 7.21.6
NOTES
The specific libcurl you are using must have been built with zlib to be
able to decompress gzip and deflate responses, with the brotli library
to decompress brotli responses and with the zstd library to decompress
zstd responses.
DEFAULT
NULL
PROTOCOLS
This functionality affects http only
EXAMPLE
int main(void)
{
CURL *curl = curl_easy_init();
if(curl) {
curl_easy_setopt(curl, CURLOPT_URL, "https://example.com");
/* enable all supported built-in compressions */
curl_easy_setopt(curl, CURLOPT_ACCEPT_ENCODING, "");
/* Perform the request */
curl_easy_perform(curl);
}
}
AVAILABILITY
Added in curl 7.21.6
RETURN VALUE
curl_easy_setopt(3) returns a CURLcode indicating success or error.
CURLE_OK (0) means everything was OK, non-zero means an error occurred,
see libcurl-errors(3).
SEE ALSO
CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER(3), CURLOPT_HTTP_CONTENT_DECODING(3),
CURLOPT_TRANSFER_ENCODING(3)
libcurl 2026-03-23 CURLOPT_ACCEPT_ENCODING(3)
curl 8.19.0 - Generated Thu Mar 26 18:19:43 CDT 2026