follow-redirect-url

A simple command-line utility that lets you follow redirects to see where http URLs end up. Useful for shortened URLs.

Follows up to 20 redirects Default.

Also added User-Agent header to requests, some web address won't redirect without browsers information eg: https://fb.me

Table of contents

• Installation
• Usage
• Output
• Options
• Troubleshooting

Installation

Install with npm globally (For CLI):

npm install -g follow-redirect-url@latest

Install for your project:

npm install --save follow-redirect-url

Verify install

follow --version
follow doctor

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Usage

CLI:

follow https://bit.ly/2X7gCIT
follow --version
follow doctor

Module:

The first argument is a url string.

'use strict';

const followRedirect = require('follow-redirect-url');

async function main() {
    const urls = await followRedirect.startFollowing('https://bit.ly/2X7gCIT');
    console.log(urls);
}

main().catch(console.error);

Programmatic version:

const { version } = require('follow-redirect-url');
console.log(version);

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Output

CLI Result:

https://bit.ly/2X7gCIT -> 301
http://github.com/sthnaqvi/follow-redirect-url -> 301
https://github.com/sthnaqvi/follow-redirect-url -> 200

Arabic and other Unicode paths are shown percent-encoded in the redirect chain (same as a browser address bar).

Project Result:

[ { url: 'https://bit.ly/2X7gCIT',
    redirect: true,
    status: 301,
    redirectUrl: 'http://github.com/sthnaqvi/follow-redirect-url' },
  { url: 'http://github.com/sthnaqvi/follow-redirect-url',
    redirect: true,
    status: 301,
    redirectUrl: 'https://github.com/sthnaqvi/follow-redirect-url' },
  { url: 'https://github.com/sthnaqvi/follow-redirect-url',
    redirect: false,
    status: 200 } ]

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Options

CLI options:

• -v, --version, -V — print package version
• -H "Header: value" — send custom request headers
• follow doctor — check for stale duplicate global installs

Module options:

The second argument is an options object. Options are optional.

• max_redirect_length - maximum redirection limit. Default: 20
• request_timeout - request timeout in milliseconds. Default: 10000
• ignoreSslErrors - ignore SSL certificate errors when following redirects. Default: false

const followRedirect = require('follow-redirect-url');

const options = {
    max_redirect_length: 5,
    request_timeout: 5000,
    ignoreSslErrors: true
};

async function main() {
    const urls = await followRedirect.startFollowing('https://bit.ly/2X7gCIT', options);
    console.log(urls);
}

main().catch(console.error);

Note: URL fragments (#section) are not part of HTTP redirects and cannot be followed by this tool.

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Troubleshooting

Check installed version

follow --version
npm list -g follow-redirect-url

Stale global install (wrong version running)

If follow behaves unexpectedly or shows deprecation warnings despite installing the latest version, an old global binary may be shadowing the new one (e.g. /usr/local/bin/follow from an older install).

follow doctor
npm uninstall -g follow-redirect-url --prefix /usr/local
npm install -g follow-redirect-url@latest
hash -r
follow doctor

Site returns 403

Some sites use Cloudflare or bot protection. The CLI sends a modern browser User-Agent and Accept-Language by default, but Cloudflare can still block non-browser clients before any HTTP redirect runs.

Example: https://www.mobtada.com/sports/1199729 HTTP-redirects in Chrome to the full Arabic slug URL, but follow may stop at 403 because Cloudflare blocks the request first. This is not a JavaScript-only redirect — the tool does not execute page scripts.

For protected sites, pass cookies or custom headers from your browser:

follow -H "Cookie: your-cookie" https://example.com

Or copy the final URL from your browser address bar after it loads.

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