CURLOPT_COOKIEFILE(3) Library Functions Manual CURLOPT_COOKIEFILE(3)
NAME
CURLOPT_COOKIEFILE - filename to read cookies from
SYNOPSIS
#include <curl/curl.h>
CURLcode curl_easy_setopt(CURL *handle, CURLOPT_COOKIEFILE, char *filename);
DESCRIPTION
Pass a pointer to a null-terminated string as parameter. It should point
to the filename of your file holding cookie data to read. The cookie
data can be in either the old Netscape / Mozilla cookie data format or
just regular HTTP headers (Set-Cookie style) dumped to a file.
It also enables the cookie engine, making libcurl parse and send cookies
on subsequent requests with this handle.
By passing the empty string ("") to this option, you enable the cookie
engine without reading any initial cookies. If you tell libcurl the
filename is "-" (just a single minus sign), libcurl instead reads from
stdin.
This option only reads cookies. To make libcurl write cookies to file,
see CURLOPT_COOKIEJAR(3).
If you read cookies from a plain HTTP headers file and it does not spec-
ify a domain in the Set-Cookie line, then the cookie is not sent since
the cookie domain cannot match the target URL's. To address this, set a
domain in Set-Cookie line (doing that includes subdomains) or prefer-
ably: use the Netscape format.
The application does not have to keep the string around after setting
this option.
If you use this option multiple times, you add more files to read cook-
ies from. Setting this option to NULL disables the cookie engine and
clears the list of files to read cookies from.
SECURITY CONCERNS
This document previously mentioned how specifying a non-existing file
can also enable the cookie engine. While true, we strongly advise
against using that method as it is too hard to be sure that files that
stay that way in the long run.
DEFAULT
NULL
PROTOCOLS
This functionality affects http only
EXAMPLE
int main(void)
{
CURL *curl = curl_easy_init();
if(curl) {
CURLcode res;
curl_easy_setopt(curl, CURLOPT_URL, "https://example.com/foo.bin");
/* get cookies from an existing file */
curl_easy_setopt(curl, CURLOPT_COOKIEFILE, "/tmp/cookies.txt");
res = curl_easy_perform(curl);
curl_easy_cleanup(curl);
}
}
Cookie file format
The cookie file format and general cookie concepts in curl are described
online here: https://curl.se/docs/http-cookies.html
AVAILABILITY
Added in curl 7.1
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_COOKIE(3), CURLOPT_COOKIEJAR(3), CURLOPT_COOKIESESSION(3)
libcurl 2026-07-12 CURLOPT_COOKIEFILE(3)
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