How to Silence cURL Output and Errors

When running cron jobs, shell scripts, or automated tasks, you often need to execute a network request without cluttering the terminal or log files. This article explains how to completely suppress all output from the curl command, including progress meters, downloaded content, and error messages.

The most efficient and standard way to make curl completely silent is by combining the silent flag with output redirection.

Run the following command in your terminal:

curl -s -o /dev/null https://example.com

How It Works

• -s (or --silent): This option silences curl. It disables the progress meter and prevents error messages from being written to the standard error (stderr) stream.
• -o /dev/null (or --output /dev/null): This redirects the actual response body (standard output/stdout) of the request to /dev/null, a special system file that discards all data written to it.

Alternative: Shell Redirection

If you prefer to use standard shell redirection instead of command-specific flags, you can redirect both standard output (stdout) and standard error (stderr) directly to /dev/null:

curl https://example.com > /dev/null 2>&1

In this command: * > /dev/null redirects the standard output (the downloaded webpage or API response). * 2>&1 redirects standard error (including the progress meter and any connection errors) to the same place as standard output, silencing the command entirely.