Friday, January 26, 2007

Hide file extensions in URLs with .htaccess files

I was working on a (rather neglected, outdated) site I had previously done and decided it needed some (rather, a lot of) improvements. I was looking for a way to get rid of to clean up the URLs without having to remap my files. .htaccess to the rescue!

.htaccess files are a wonderful thing, and incredibly powerful, ignoring the bad experience I had with them on my current web host (fortunately, this project is hosted by another web host, and everything runs perfectly with them :)), and Apache's mod_rewrite module does exactly what we need.

There are a bunch of reasons you'd want to do this, mainly:

  • it looks cleaner and easier to read and remember
  • by using search-engine–friendly URLs, you're Google PageRank will increase and will increase your website's findability
  • it makes your website environment-independent, so if you ever decide to change the technology your site uses, everything would appear seamless to your visitors.

In this case, we're using PHP files, but you can change it to whatever type of file you're using, be it .html, .asp, .cfm, or anything else, as long as they're all the same type. (If you want to do this for multiple file types, just copy lines 2–4 and apply the same technique accordingly.)

Open your text editor and create a file called ".htaccess" with the following code in it, and upload it to your site's root directory (Note: On Unix and unix-like operating systems, files that start with a dot are hidden files, so you may not be able to see the file after you save it. To get around this, omit the preceding dot when naming the file, and then rename the file back to ".htaccess" after you have uploaded it to your webserver):


RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}\.php -f
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ $1.php

(adapted from the Apache mailing list)

Using this code, instead of having to type in http://mysite.com/contact.php, you only need to enter http://mysite.com/contact to access that page. And the best part is, you can still access the page with .php on the end of it, so no old incoming links or bookmarks become orphaned as a result of this, and everyone is happy.

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92 comments:

Anonymous said...

Nice. Thanks.

Anonymous said...

nice article... :-)

Anonymous said...

thanks for your help man!!!

Bala Menon said...

thx dude... been searching for a while for this!!!

Unknown said...

As Monty Burns would say, "Excellent!"

Guild of Abundance said...

Thank you so much. I've been tying to figure out how to do this for the past week. With .htm files.

Thanks
Rayvin Nyte
Guild of Abundance

Praveen Kumar Gupta said...

hi,
Could u tell me what u have done that ur script works fine.

I have added ur script in my .htaccess file but it is not working, it is giving error

Error 404: NOT FOUND!
Your browser cannot find the document corresponding to the URL you typed in.

Polomercantil said...

for RewriteCond specify the website root directory:

/website root dir/%{REQUEST_FILENAME} ...

Ellie Marquez said...

Thanks! I've been trying to figure that out. You really saved me a lot of time.

Peter Ellis said...

Hi

Just remember that if you have a link called myportfolio.php and a folder called myportfolio/ which contains your portfolio work then this might not work. So you have 2 options you either add in some complex regexp/re write rules or.... make sure you dont have the same folder names as href links! Enjoy!

Person thing said...

Re: directory and filenames being the same causing problems - it's a good thing to point out, but it's bad practice to have that. Directories and filenames should be different. If you have a file that exists in a directory, it should be called index, not the same name. Otherwise, users accessing that directory would be able to see your file list. As for the .htaccess solution itself, THANK YOU. So, so much. This worked without a hitch. Much appreciated.

JohnD said...

GREAT WORK AND THANK YOU VERY MUCH! Was looking everywhere for this and couldn't find it anywhere! Many thanks again!

Anonymous said...

great! thanks for this tip, I had been searching for a solution for hours!

Unknown said...

I use 1and1.com and can't seem to get this to work right?
I am getting the 404 error like "Praveen Kumar Gupta" and have tried the advise of "PoloMercantil said...
for RewriteCond specify the website root directory:

/website root dir/%{REQUEST_FILENAME} ..."
but I can't seem to get that right either?

I use Linux Hosting and already have a .htaccess file that I use to forward to my custom 404 page, so I know I have one, and know that it works. In "PoloMercantil"'s remarks they said to specify the "Website Root Directory" and gave the example. Since I use Linux hosting it is simply / and my specific website is in a folder called UCHT so how exactly would I correctly write the above example to get it to work? and would I place it in the UCHT folder, or just the / directory? Also the "%{REQUEST_FILENAME}" appears twice in this code, so do I put the directory info on both lines/both times? (I have tried literally like 20 different combinations and guesses to get this to work, ( /%{REQUEST_FILENAME}", ///%{REQUEST_FILENAME}", /UCHT/%{REQUEST_FILENAME}" with spaces without spaces. on one line/on both lines/root directory/website folder...) but I just can't get it to work???)
Also can I repeat this over and over for .php and .html pages in the same .htaccess file? just seperate them by a "Return/Line" and then change the example to .html in both places that say .php?
Thank You SO much, anyone who has the answer to this.

Ahmad said...

Thx 100 times, I use it to remove the ".html" which works perfectly, by changing the "php" to "html"

You are great, thanks again

GrantG said...

I am creating a new site. All the files I have created are HTML, but the Contact form (which uses Ajax) is PHP.

I would like to have all the files extensions hidden via htaccess.

eg.

.com/about.html > .com/about
.com/contact.php > .com/contact

Is there any way I can do this? Furthermore, this is a brand new site, so I would like to hide the direct file (ie. you can only access .com/about - not .com/about.html) - can I use 301 redirects to redirect about.html to /about - or will this confuse the htaccess script?

Thabto Design said...

Works perfectly on our site: www.thabto.co.uk

...Thanks very much

StephenMWoods said...

Brilliant .... Thank You

prab n said...

any idea, how to achieve the same thing in IIS 6/7

Design Village said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Design Village said...

I tried above code for .shtml files and it's not working. Any idea?

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}\.shtml -f
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ $1.shtml

8/24/2009 12:40:00 PM

Thomas said...

I will try this straight away!

admin said...

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}\.asp-f
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ $1.asp


im trying with asp, its not working

admin said...

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}\.asp -f
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ $1.asp

im trying the above code, its not working, any idea...? Please help me out ... :)

Thanks

admin said...

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}\.asp -f
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ $1.asp

Iam using the above code, its not working...something wrong...? Please help me out :)

Randon said...

Hey Admin,

You need to remove all ".asp" links from all ur pages,

Then it should work!! :) cheers!

Candy said...

I've tried this code and it is not working for me.

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}\.html -f
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ $1.html

I've even put the file in every place possible (root, folders, etc.) Am I doing something wrong?

Randon said...

Hey Candy, do you have any ".html" urls within ur pages?

Anonymous said...

I want to fix it so that if users type /xxx.html they get /xxx, and I thought this method would work, but it doesn't seem to. Do I have to do something different? And is there a way to do without gutting this extension stripper?

the boss said...

THANK YOU!

Karunakar said...

Hi,

This is a great tip.

Here, the file is accessing in both the ways: http://mysite.com/contact.php and http://mysite.com/contact

This is a URL canonical issue. How to solve this canonical issue. I need, even if anybody search with the extension also it must be redirect to http://mysite.com/contact

Finally, file must have to be accessed only for the URL: http://mysite.com/contact

How to do this?

Thanks again,

Karunakar Rao Pokala.

T3 said...

Nice, simple, easy...and it worked!
Thank you!!!

HackitZ said...

For the people having issue's with this not working, make sure you remove the .html, .php, .htm...etc is removed from the link in your html.

EX
Bad:# href="/about.html" title="About Me">About Me

good:# href="/about" title="About Me">About Me

Mark said...

does not work on godaddy hosting services!! used the .htaccess file on MAMP and it worked but still having issues with godaddy. their support center was no use...

Anonymous said...

seems there is a glitch ie:
if you type
mysite.com/test.html
it of will take you to mysite.com/test

but if you type
mysite.com/test/ it for some reason turns off the css.

why is that?

Anonymous said...

seems there is a glitch ie:
if you type
mysite.com/test.html
it of will take you to mysite.com/test

but if you type
mysite.com/test/ it for some reason turns off the css.

why is that?

Anonymous said...

seems there is a glitch ie:
if you type
mysite.com/test.html
it of will take you to mysite.com/test

but if you type
mysite.com/test/ it for some reason turns off the css.

why is that?

Anonymous said...

seems there is a glitch:
if you type
mysite.com/test.html
it of will take you to mysite.com/test

but if you type
mysite.com/test/ it for some reason turns off the css.

why is that?

Unknown said...

Thanks for this great tip.

1 question - when I manually type the adress it works, but when I press a link to another page in my site it will show the page with the extension, jow can I hide it?

Erin Ivey said...

thank you for making that so simple! been looking for that fix forever. (feels like forever anyway)

cheers,
erin

Unknown said...

thank you so much|!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i was looking for this.....thanks!

Unknown said...

Does exactly what it says on the tin
Top Job!

Prabu said...

Works on my PHP pages, dude.

I changed the links in my php / html omitting the extension. Now when I type example.com/test it works, example.com/test.php it works, when i do example.com/test/, it throws a 500 Internal Server Error error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request. How to fix this?

Unknown said...

This blog has been helping people for 3yrs now. Nice job my man!!

admin said...

This is tricky.. WHAT IF THERE IS A FOLDER HAVE A SAME NAME AS A PHP FILE IN THE SAME DIR???

webeno said...

Love your post, I even linked to it in one of mine: Hide File Extension with .htaccess

Unknown said...

Thanks alot, worked very well for me!

admin said...

How can i rewrite a rule like this:

http://mysite.com/page.php?content

into this:

http://mysite.com/page/content/

?

I'm new using rewritecond and i can't find an answer to this...:(
Thanks in advance

webeno said...

@GB: try this:

Options +FollowSymlinks
RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule ^subfolder/([0-9]+)-([a-z]+) http://mysite.com/subfolder/page.php?content=$1-$2 [NC]


it would display http://mysite.com/subfolder/content for http://mysite.com/subfolder/index.php?content=something

hope this helps

webeno said...

@GP: sorry, more precisely it would display http://mysite.com/subfolder/something for http://mysite.com/subfolder/page.php?content=something

admin said...

Thank you very much for your advice webeno!..
actually, the subfolder part is useless.
take a closer look in my example:
http://mysite.com/page.php?content
into this:
http://mysite.com/page/content/

any ideas?

(thank you!)

Unknown said...

im trying to hide all the .php extensions on my website... this is the .htaccess
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}\.php -f
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ $1.php

but its not working... when i click eg.
www.example.com/about it works but if i click it from the navigation menu the .php still shows? please help?

Unknown said...

im trying to hide all the .php extensions on my website... this is the .htaccess
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}\.php -f
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ $1.php

but its not working... when i click eg.
www.example.com/about it works but if i click it from the navigation menu the .php still shows? please help?

Unknown said...

What's the way around this if you're using a server like hostclear and it doesnt seem to work. Am I correct in saying this .htaccess file should be literally just dropped into the public_html (assuming that's where the site is published to) and let it do its work? Cos Ive tried the above suggestions and only get error 500s :S

webeno said...

I'm not the admin of this blog, so hope he's not offended if i answer :)

@ Sachin: not sure how your site is built exactly, but if you click on a link that leads you to pages with .php extension at the end, it will display the extension in the address bar too. You have to make sure that you remove the extension from your links so that they don't display.

@ Tom: you're absolutely right, however some hosting providers don't allow .htaccess. if you get the 500 error after setting up the .htaccess file, then it's allowed and you made a mistake in your file. If the error is there before adding .htaccess, something else must be wrong there and you better contact your hosting provider for help.

Pieter said...

If the URL is still accessible with the .php extension, Google has two versions, no? That means that there is duplicate content en that will be punished...

Pieter said...

If the URL is still accessible with the .php extension, Google has two versions, no? That means that there is duplicate content en that will be punished...

Anonymous said...

thankxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx... i waz looking for this kind of thing from many day .. g8 work man..

Joe said...

Worked perfectly, had a problem with the host One.com who told me I would have to create a subdomain for every page and point it the document. Otherwise I would have had to change 30 odd links manually, thanks again =)

Anonymous said...

Does is work with 1and1.com beginner package? Is there a specific technique required while putting that on ftp server?

Anonymous said...

thanks..usefully..

Saqib said...

Very Nice tip.... really cool method to hide extension of files...

well I am going to try... if I will stuck anytime.. I will tease you by asking the solutions... lol :P

Keep up good work :)

Thnx

Anonymous said...

Help!

Keep getting 500 error messages, how can you find the hidden .htaccess file to delete it??

Have selected all in the folder except cgi-bin and deleted, but hasn't worked, also tried searching for it but no luck, have three sites down now, using FN Hosting and Transmit...

Anonymous said...

Phew, sorry, slight panic..

TIPS...

For anyone in the same boat go to VIEW in Transmit and click on Show HIdden Files, to see the ,htaccess on the server.

And the 500 error messages were because TextEdit on mac was saving the htaccess as a RTF RichText file... it must be plain text and saved as a .txt file (got rid of 500 error messages)... oh, and have deleted all .html extensions from the links.... works a treat now.. Thank you!!! x

WOOX3R said...

it has been working for me so far but this piece of code:

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}\.php -f
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ $1.php

appears as invalid here:

http://www.lyxx.com/freestuff/002.html

why is this happening?

jrex said...

Hi,

I am trying to remove the .html extension from my website but I haven't had much success.

I have listed the steps below that I have taken.

1. The file is an .htaccess.txt file
2. I have deleted the .html from a few of the links to test it out but I am getting file not found messages when it does try to link.
3. I have asked my hosting provider (mecca hosting) to enable .htaccess.
4. I have put my root folder in the .htaccess file code so the code is now

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond /http://www.juliamcpherson.co.uk/%{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond /http://www.juliamcpherson.co.uk/%{REQUEST_FILENAME}\.html -f
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ $1.html

I am really lost and not really sure what to do to fix it as I am pretty new to this.

Hopefully someone can help?

Bryan said...

yaayy!!

Masuk said...

haha lol yz http://www.vinica.org/images/dl.php?fileid4643-Photo32.JPG

streamliner said...

That didn't work for me. Although, I tried removing the .htm...

I tried this, later:
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteRule ^([^\.]+)$ $1.htm [NC,L]

Still not working. Why? I wonder...

Web Gallaxies said...

Hii
I am having a website in a folder name site .I save the following code in this folder in .htaccess file
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}\.php -f
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ $1.php

but it's not working ..plz provide me valid solution or guide the the valid way to do this.I am not able to understand

Anonymous said...

thanks apreciated

Amila Viduranga Wijewardena said...

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}\.asp -f
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ $1.asp

guys can you give me a example

Amila Viduranga Wijewardena said...

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %eg !-d
RewriteCond %eg\.html -f
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ www.eg.com/eg.html
this is correct

Anonymous said...

Thanks man!

Litespeed Hosting said...

Email hosting is provided by companies large and small. Such well-known companies as Yahoo, Google, and Microsoft offer email hosting.

VF said...

@ karunakar :
You found a solution? I have the same probelm. Thanks karunakar

Anonymous said...

Thanks so much! I've been looking everywhere for this!

العاب بن تن said...

Works perfectly on our site: www.thabto.co.uk

...Thanks very much

Abhi said...

super duper like.
this is a perfect example.
so simple to implement.
just took 2 min , and i was searching it for many days.
Lucky I am
Kidsmitra.com

Anonymous said...

Guys
please visit www.kidsmitra.com
for all kind of kids related information
ex. tuition,play schools,schools,yoga classes, doctors and many more

thanks
Manu

Kanyon said...

Thank you so much! I've been looking everywhere for this and nothing would work. Thanks again!!

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