---
c: Copyright (C) Daniel Stenberg, <daniel@haxx.se>, et al.
SPDX-License-Identifier: curl
Long: hsts
Arg: <filename>
Protocols: HTTPS
Help: Enable HSTS with this cache file
Added: 7.74.0
Category: http
Multi: append
See-also:
  - proto
Example:
  - --hsts cache.txt $URL
---

# `--hsts`

Enable HSTS for the transfer. If the filename points to an existing HSTS cache
file, that is used. After a completed transfer, the cache is saved to the
filename again if it has been modified.

If curl is told to use HTTP:// for a transfer involving a hostname that exists
in the HSTS cache, it upgrades the transfer to use HTTPS. Each HSTS cache
entry has an individual lifetime after which the upgrade is no longer
performed.

Specify a "" filename (zero length) to avoid loading/saving and make curl
handle HSTS in memory.

You may want to restrict your umask to prevent other users on the same system
to access the created file.

If this option is used several times, curl loads contents from all the
files but the last one is used for saving.

Since curl 8.20.0, curl keeps no more than the most recently added 10,000
unique HSTS hostnames.
