wcurl(1) General Commands Manual wcurl(1) # [NAME](#NAME) **wcurl** - a simple wrapper around curl to easily download files. # [SYNOPSIS](#SYNOPSIS) **wcurl <URL>...** **wcurl \[--curl-options <CURL\_OPTIONS>]... \[--dry-run] \[--no-decode-filename] \[-o|-O|--output <PATH>] \[--] <URL>...** **wcurl \[--curl-options=<CURL\_OPTIONS>]... \[--dry-run] \[--no-decode-filename] \[--output=<PATH>] \[--] <URL>...** **wcurl -V|--version** **wcurl -h|--help** # [DESCRIPTION](#DESCRIPTION) **wcurl** is a simple curl wrapper which lets you use curl to download files without having to remember any parameters. Call **wcurl** with a list of URLs you want to download and **wcurl** picks sane defaults. If you need anything more complex, you can provide any of curl's supported parameters via the **--curl-options** option. Beware that you likely should be using curl directly if your use case is not covered. By default, **wcurl** does: \* Percent-encode whitespace in URLs; \* Download multiple URLs in parallel ``` if the installed curl's version is \>= 7.66.0 (--parallel); ``` \* Use a total number of 5 parallel connections to the same protocol + hostname + port number target ``` if the installed curl's version is \>= 8.16.0 (--parallel-max-host); ``` \* Follow redirects; \* Automatically choose a filename as output; \* Avoid overwriting files ``` if the installed curl's version is \>= 7.83.0 (--no-clobber); ``` \* Perform retries; \* Set the downloaded file timestamp ``` to the value provided by the server, if available; ``` \* Default to https ``` if the URL does not contain any scheme; ``` \* Disable curl's URL globbing parser ``` so {} and [] characters in URLs are not treated specially; ``` \* Percent-decode the resulting filename; \* Use 'index.html' as the default filename ``` if there is none in the URL, or if it is '-'. ``` # [OPTIONS](#OPTIONS) [--curl-options, --curl-options=<CURL\_OPTIONS>...](#curl-options,) Specify extra options to be passed when invoking curl. May be specified more than once. [-o, -O, --output, --output=<PATH>](#o,) Use the provided output path instead of getting it from the URL. If multiple URLs are provided, resulting files share the same name with a number appended to the end (curl >= 7.83.0). If this option is provided multiple times, only the last value is considered. [--no-decode-filename](#no-decode-filename) Do not percent-decode the output filename, even if the percent-encoding in the URL was done by **wcurl**, e.g.: The URL contained whitespace. [--dry-run](#dry-run) Do not actually execute curl, print what would be invoked. [-V, --version](#V,) Print version information. [-h, --help](#h,) Print help message. # [CURL\_OPTIONS](#CURL_OPTIONS) Any option supported by curl can be set here. This is not used by **wcurl**; it is instead forwarded to the curl invocation. The value is split on whitespace (spaces, tabs and newlines) and each resulting word is passed to curl as a separate argument. Quotes and backslashes are not interpreted, so an argument containing whitespace cannot be passed this way. For example, **--curl-options='-H "Cookie: a=1; b=2"'** passes the four arguments *-H*, *"Cookie:*, *a=1;* and *b=2"* to curl, which treats the extra words as URLs to download. To pass arguments that contain whitespace, write them to a curl config file and pass it with **--curl-options="--config <FILE>"**, or use curl directly. Everything in <CURL\_OPTIONS> becomes part of the curl command line, so never build it from untrusted input. # [URL](#URL) URL to be downloaded. Anything that is not a parameter is considered an URL. Whitespace is percent-encoded and the URL is passed to curl, which then performs the parsing. May be specified more than once. # [EXAMPLES](#EXAMPLES) Download a single file: **wcurl example.com/filename.txt** Download two files in parallel: **wcurl example.com/filename1.txt example.com/filename2.txt** Download a file passing the **--progress-bar** and **--http2** flags to curl: **wcurl --curl-options="--progress-bar --http2" example.com/filename.txt** Resume from an interrupted download. The options necessary to resume the download (*--clobber --continue-at -*) must be the **last** options specified in *--curl-options*. Note that the only way to resume interrupted downloads is to allow wcurl to overwrite the destination file: **wcurl --curl-options="--clobber --continue-at -" example.com/filename.txt** Download multiple files without a limit of concurrent connections per host (the default limit is 5): **wcurl --curl-options="--parallel-max-host 0" example.com/filename1.txt example.com/filename2.txt** # [AUTHORS](#AUTHORS) ``` Samuel Henrique \ Sergio Durigan Junior \ and many contributors, see the AUTHORS file. ``` # [REPORTING BUGS](#REPORTING_BUGS) If you experience any problems with **wcurl** that you do not experience with curl, submit an issue on GitHub: https://github.com/curl/wcurl # [COPYRIGHT](#COPYRIGHT) **wcurl** is licensed under the curl license # [SEE ALSO](#SEE_ALSO) [**curl**(1)](/man/os/curl/curl.1), [**trurl**(1)](/man/os/curl/trurl.1) 2026-10-14 wcurl --- Document: wcurl(1) from curl 8.23.0-r0 (Chainguard OS) Source: https://github.com/curl/curl.git