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✂A collection of useful .htaccess snippets.

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Mar 09 - Mar 15, 2026

Rewrite and Redirection / Force www

Force www

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^example\.com [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://www.example.com/$1 [L,R=301,NC]

Rewrite and Redirection / Force non-www

Force non-www

It’s still open for debate whether www or non-www is the way to go, so if you happen to be a fan of bare domains, here you go:

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www\.example\.com [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://example.com/$1 [L,R=301]

Rewrite and Redirection / Remove Trailing Slash

Remove Trailing Slash

This snippet will redirect paths ending in slashes to their non-slash-terminated counterparts (except for actual directories), e.g. https://www.example.com/blog/ to https://www.example.com/blog. This is important for SEO, since it’s recommended to have a canonical URL for every page.

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} (.+)/$
RewriteRule ^ %1 [R=301,L]

Source

Rewrite and Redirection / Redirect an Entire Site

Redirect an Entire Site

Redirect 301 / https://newsite.com/

This way does it with links intact. That is www.oldsite.com/some/crazy/link.html will become www.newsite.com/some/crazy/link.html. This is extremely helpful when you are just “moving” a site to a new domain. Source

Rewrite and Redirection / Redirect Using RedirectMatch

Redirect Using RedirectMatch

RedirectMatch 301 /subdirectory(.*) https://www.newsite.com/newfolder/$1
RedirectMatch 301 ^/(.*).htm$ /$1.html
RedirectMatch 301 ^/200([0-9])/([^01])(.*)$ /$2$3
RedirectMatch 301 ^/category/(.*)$ /$1
RedirectMatch 301 ^/(.*)/htaccesselite-ultimate-htaccess-article.html(.*) /htaccess/htaccess.html
RedirectMatch 301 ^/(.*).html/1/(.*) /$1.html$2
RedirectMatch 301 ^/manual/(.*)$ https://www.php.net/manual/$1
RedirectMatch 301 ^/old-directory/(.*)$ /new-directory/$1
RedirectMatch 301 ^/z/(.*)$ https://static.askapache.com/$1

Source

Rewrite and Redirection / Alias “Clean” URLs

Alias “Clean” URLs

This snippet lets you use “clean” URLs -- those without a PHP extension, e.g. example.com/users instead of example.com/users.php.

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{SCRIPT_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^([^.]+)$ $1.php [NC,L]

Source

Security / Deny All Access

Deny All Access

Require all denied

But wait, this will lock you out from your content as well! Thus introducing...

Security / Deny All Access Except Yours

Deny All Access Except Yours

Require all denied
Require ip xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx

xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx is your IP. If you replace the last three digits with 0/12 for example, this will specify a range of IPs within the same network, thus saving you the trouble to list all allowed IPs separately. Source

Now of course there's a reversed version:

Security / Allow All Access Except Spammers'

Allow All Access Except Spammers'

Require all granted
Require not ip xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx
Require not ip xxx.xxx.xxx.xxy

Security / Disable Image Hotlinking

Disable Image Hotlinking

RewriteEngine on
# Remove the following line if you want to block blank referrer too
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$

RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^https?://(.+\.)?example.com [NC]
RewriteRule \.(jpe?g|png|gif|bmp|webp|avif|svg|ico)$ - [NC,F,L]

# If you want to display a “blocked” banner in place of the hotlinked image,
# replace the above rule with:
# RewriteRule \.(jpe?g|png|gif|bmp|webp|avif|svg|ico) https://example.com/blocked.png [R,L]

Security / Disable Image Hotlinking for Specific Domains

Disable Image Hotlinking for Specific Domains

Sometimes you want to disable image hotlinking from some bad guys only.

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^https?://(.+\.)?badsite\.com [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^https?://(.+\.)?badsite2\.com [NC,OR]
RewriteRule \.(jpe?g|png|gif|bmp|webp|avif|svg|ico)$ - [NC,F,L]

# If you want to display a “blocked” banner in place of the hotlinked image,
# replace the above rule with:
# RewriteRule \.(jpe?g|png|gif|bmp|webp|avif|svg|ico) https://example.com/blocked.png [R,L]

Security / Block Visitors by Referrer

Block Visitors by Referrer

This denies access for all users who are coming from (referred by) a specific domain. Source

RewriteEngine on
# Options +FollowSymlinks
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} somedomain\.com [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} anotherdomain\.com
RewriteRule .* - [F]

Security / Block Specific User Agents

Block Specific User Agents

This will block specific user agents from accessing your site, useful for blocking scrapers and bad bots.

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} BadBot [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} EvilScraper [NC]
RewriteRule .* - [F,L]

Security / Content Security Policy (CSP)

Content Security Policy (CSP)

A Content Security Policy header helps mitigate cross-site scripting (XSS) and other code injection attacks by declaring which dynamic resources are allowed to load.

<IfModule mod_headers.c>
    Header set Content-Security-Policy "default-src 'self'; script-src 'self'; style-src 'self'"
</IfModule>

Adjust the directives to fit your needs. See the CSP reference for all available directives.

Security / Prevent MIME Type Sniffing

Prevent MIME Type Sniffing

This prevents browsers from trying to guess ("sniff") the MIME type of a resource, which can have security implications. The browser will trust what the server says and block the resource if it doesn't match the expected type.

<IfModule mod_headers.c>
    Header set X-Content-Type-Options "nosniff"
</IfModule>

Security / Set Referrer Policy

Set Referrer Policy

Control how much referrer information is included with requests. This helps protect user privacy by preventing the full URL from leaking to external sites.

<IfModule mod_headers.c>
    Header set Referrer-Policy "strict-origin-when-cross-origin"
</IfModule>

Security / Set Permissions Policy

Set Permissions Policy

Restrict which browser features your site can use, such as camera, microphone, geolocation, etc.

<IfModule mod_headers.c>
    Header set Permissions-Policy "camera=(), microphone=(), geolocation=(), interest-cohort=()"
</IfModule>

Performance / Remove Server Signature

Remove Server Signature

Prevent Apache from exposing its version number and OS information in HTTP headers and error pages.

ServerSignature Off

Performance / Set Cache-Control Headers

Set Cache-Control Headers

Cache-Control headers provide more fine-grained control over browser caching than Expires headers. You can use both together for maximum compatibility.

<IfModule mod_headers.c>
    # Cache CSS and JS for 1 year
    <FilesMatch "\.(css|js)$">
        Header set Cache-Control "max-age=31536000, public"
    </FilesMatch>

    # Cache images for 1 month
    <FilesMatch "\.(jpe?g|png|gif|webp|avif|svg|ico)$">
        Header set Cache-Control "max-age=2592000, public"
    </FilesMatch>

    # Cache fonts for 1 month
    <FilesMatch "\.(woff2?|ttf|otf)$">
        Header set Cache-Control "max-age=2592000, public"
    </FilesMatch>

    # Do not cache HTML
    <FilesMatch "\.(html|htm)$">
        Header set Cache-Control "no-cache, no-store, must-revalidate"
    </FilesMatch>
</IfModule>

Miscellaneous / Turn eTags Off

Turn eTags Off

By removing the ETag header, you disable caches and browsers from being able to validate files, so they are forced to rely on your Cache-Control and Expires header. Source

<IfModule mod_headers.c>
    Header unset ETag
</IfModule>
FileETag None

Miscellaneous / Custom Error Pages

Custom Error Pages

ErrorDocument 500 "Houston, we have a problem."
ErrorDocument 401 https://error.example.com/mordor.html
ErrorDocument 404 /errors/halflife3.html

Miscellaneous / Custom Maintenance Page

Custom Maintenance Page

Redirect all traffic to a maintenance page while still allowing access from a specific IP address.

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{REMOTE_ADDR} !^xxx\.xxx\.xxx\.xxx
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !/maintenance.html$ [NC]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !\.(css|js|png|jpe?g|gif|svg|ico)$ [NC]
RewriteRule .* /maintenance.html [R=503,L]

Replace xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx with your IP address to retain access while the site is under maintenance.

Miscellaneous / Enable CORS

Enable CORS

Enable Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (CORS) for your site, allowing other domains to make requests to your server.

<IfModule mod_headers.c>
    Header set Access-Control-Allow-Origin "*"
    Header set Access-Control-Allow-Methods "GET, POST, PUT, DELETE, OPTIONS"
    Header set Access-Control-Allow-Headers "Content-Type, Authorization"
</IfModule>

To restrict access to specific domains, replace * with the domain, e.g. https://example.com.

Miscellaneous / Set Custom MIME Types

Set Custom MIME Types

Define custom MIME types for file formats that Apache may not recognize by default.

AddType application/manifest+json .webmanifest
AddType application/wasm .wasm
AddType application/x-ndjson .ndjson
AddType text/vtt .vtt

Miscellaneous / Switch to Another PHP Version

Switch to Another PHP Version

If you’re on a shared host, chances are there are more than one version of PHP installed, and sometimes you want a specific version for your website. The following snippet should switch the PHP version for you.

AddHandler application/x-httpd-php84 .php

# Alternatively, you can use AddType
AddType application/x-httpd-php84 .php

Miscellaneous / Serve WebP/AVIF Images

Serve WebP/AVIF Images

If a modern format image (AVIF or WebP) with the same name exists alongside the original jpg/png, it will be served instead. AVIF is preferred over WebP when the browser supports both.

RewriteEngine On

# Serve AVIF if supported and available
RewriteCond %{HTTP_ACCEPT} image/avif
RewriteCond %{DOCUMENT_ROOT}/$1.avif -f
RewriteRule (.+)\.(jpe?g|png)$ $1.avif [T=image/avif,E=accept:1]

# Otherwise, serve WebP if supported and available
RewriteCond %{HTTP_ACCEPT} image/webp
RewriteCond %{DOCUMENT_ROOT}/$1.webp -f
RewriteRule (.+)\.(jpe?g|png)$ $1.webp [T=image/webp,E=accept:1]

Oct 22 - Oct 28, 2018

Security / Exclude URL from Redirection

Exclude URL from Redirection

This snippet allows you to exclude a URL from redirection. For example, if you have redirection rules setup but want to exclude robots.txt so search engines can access that URL as expected.

RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^robots.txt - [L]

Aug 24 - Aug 30, 2015

Rewrite and Redirection / Alias Paths to Script

Alias Paths to Script

FallbackResource /index.fcgi

This example has an index.fcgi file in some directory, and any requests within that directory that fail to resolve a filename/directory will be sent to the index.fcgi script. It’s good if you want baz.foo/some/cool/path to be handled by baz.foo/index.fcgi (which also supports requests to baz.foo) while maintaining baz.foo/css/style.css and the like. Get access to the original path from the PATH_INFO environment variable, as exposed to your scripting environment.

RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^$ index.fcgi/ [QSA,L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ index.fcgi/$1 [QSA,L]

This is a less efficient version of the FallbackResource directive (because using mod_rewrite is more complex than just handling the FallbackResource directive), but it’s also more flexible.

Mar 02 - Mar 08, 2015

Security / Prevent Framing the Site

Prevent Framing the Site

This prevents the website to be framed (i.e. put into an iframe tag), when still allows framing for a specific URI.

SetEnvIf Request_URI "/starry-night" allow_framing=true
Header set X-Frame-Options SAMEORIGIN env=!allow_framing

Miscellaneous / Allow Cross-Domain Fonts

Allow Cross-Domain Fonts

CDN-served webfonts might not work in Firefox due to CORS. This snippet solves the problem.

<IfModule mod_headers.c>
    <FilesMatch "\.(otf|ttc|ttf|woff|woff2)$">
        Header set Access-Control-Allow-Origin "*"
    </FilesMatch>
</IfModule>

Source (⭐3.3k)

Feb 16 - Feb 22, 2015

Rewrite and Redirection / Force non-www in a Generic Way

Force non-www in a Generic Way

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www\.
RewriteCond %{HTTPS}s ^on(s)|off
RewriteCond http%1://%{HTTP_HOST} ^(https?://)(www\.)?(.+)$
RewriteRule ^ %1%3%{REQUEST_URI} [R=301,L]

Rewrite and Redirection / Force HTTPS Behind a Proxy

Force HTTPS Behind a Proxy

Useful if you have a proxy in front of your server performing TLS termination.

RewriteCond %{HTTP:X-Forwarded-Proto} !https
RewriteRule (.*) https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI}

Rewrite and Redirection / Alias a Single Directory

Alias a Single Directory

RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^source-directory/(.*) /target-directory/$1 [R=301,L]

Security / Deny Access to Hidden Files and Directories

Deny Access to Hidden Files and Directories

Hidden files and directories (those whose names start with a dot .) should most, if not all, of the time be secured. For example: .htaccess, .htpasswd, .git, .hg...

RewriteCond %{SCRIPT_FILENAME} -d [OR]
RewriteCond %{SCRIPT_FILENAME} -f
RewriteRule "(^|/)\." - [F]

Alternatively, you can just raise a “Not Found” error, giving the attacker no clue:

RedirectMatch 404 /\..*$

Miscellaneous / Auto UTF-8 Encode

Auto UTF-8 Encode

Your text content should always be UTF-8 encoded, no?

# Use UTF-8 encoding for anything served text/plain or text/html
AddDefaultCharset utf-8

# Force UTF-8 for a number of file formats
AddCharset utf-8 .atom .css .js .json .rss .vtt .xml

Source (⭐3.3k)

Miscellaneous / Force Downloading

Force Downloading

Sometimes you want to force the browser to download some content instead of displaying it.

<Files *.md>
    ForceType application/octet-stream
    Header set Content-Disposition attachment
</Files>

Now there is a yang to this yin:

Miscellaneous / Prevent Downloading

Prevent Downloading

Sometimes you want to force the browser to display some content instead of downloading it.

<FilesMatch "\.(tex|log|aux)$">
    Header set Content-Type text/plain
</FilesMatch>

Feb 02 - Feb 08, 2015

Rewrite and Redirection

What we are doing here is mostly collecting useful snippets from all over the interwebs (for example, a good chunk is from Apache Server Configs (⭐3.3k)) into one place. While we’ve been trying to credit where due, things might be missing. If you believe anything here is your work and credits should be given, let us know, or just send a PR.

Note: It is assumed that you have mod_rewrite installed and enabled.

Rewrite and Redirection / Force www in a Generic Way

Force www in a Generic Way

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^$
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\. [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTPS}s ^on(s)|
RewriteRule ^ http%1://www.%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [R=301,L]

This works for any domain. Source

Rewrite and Redirection / Force HTTPS

Force HTTPS

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} !on
RewriteRule (.*) https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI}

# Note: It’s also recommended to enable HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS)
# on your HTTPS website to help prevent man-in-the-middle attacks.
# See https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Security/HTTP_strict_transport_security
<IfModule mod_headers.c>
    # Remove "includeSubDomains" if you don't want to enforce HSTS on all subdomains
    Header always set Strict-Transport-Security "max-age=31536000;includeSubDomains"
</IfModule>

Rewrite and Redirection / Force Trailing Slash

Force Trailing Slash

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} /+[^\.]+$
RewriteRule ^(.+[^/])$ %{REQUEST_URI}/ [R=301,L]

Security / Disable Directory Browsing

Disable Directory Browsing

Options All -Indexes

Security / Password Protect a Directory

Password Protect a Directory

First you need to create a .htpasswd file somewhere in the system:

htpasswd -c /home/fellowship/.htpasswd boromir

Then you can use it for authentication:

AuthType Basic
AuthName "One does not simply"
AuthUserFile /home/fellowship/.htpasswd
Require valid-user

Security / Password Protect a File or Several Files

Password Protect a File or Several Files

AuthName "One still does not simply"
AuthType Basic
AuthUserFile /home/fellowship/.htpasswd

<Files "one-ring.o">
Require valid-user
</Files>

<FilesMatch ^((one|two|three)-rings?\.o)$>
Require valid-user
</FilesMatch>

Miscellaneous / Set PHP Variables

Set PHP Variables

php_value <key> <val>

# For example:
php_value upload_max_filesize 50M
php_value max_execution_time 240