Skip to content

Work with HTTP headers in Express

Learn how to access and change HTTP headers using Express

THE AHA STACK MASTERCLASS

Launching May 27th

Access HTTP headers values from a request

You can access all the HTTP headers using the Request.headers property:

app.get('/', (req, res) => {
  console.log(req.headers)
})

Use the Request.header() method to access one individual request header’s value:

app.get('/', (req, res) => {
  req.header('User-Agent')
})

Change any HTTP header value for a response

You can change any HTTP header value using Response.set():

res.set('Content-Type', 'text/html')

There is a shortcut for the Content-Type header, however:

res.type('.html')
// => 'text/html'

res.type('html')
// => 'text/html'

res.type('json')
// => 'application/json'

res.type('application/json')
// => 'application/json'

res.type('png')
// => image/png:

→ Get my Express.js Handbook

I wrote 20 books to help you become a better developer:

  • Astro Handbook
  • HTML Handbook
  • Next.js Pages Router Handbook
  • Alpine.js Handbook
  • HTMX Handbook
  • TypeScript Handbook
  • React Handbook
  • SQL Handbook
  • Git Cheat Sheet
  • Laravel Handbook
  • Express Handbook
  • Swift Handbook
  • Go Handbook
  • PHP Handbook
  • Python Handbook
  • Linux Commands Handbook
  • C Handbook
  • JavaScript Handbook
  • CSS Handbook
  • Node.js Handbook
...download them all now!

Related posts that talk about express: