node.js check if a remote URL exists

Question

How do I check to see if a URL exists without pulling it down? I use the following code, but it downloads the whole file. I just need to check that it exists.

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Answer 1

Take a look at the url-exists npm package https://www.npmjs.com/package/url-exists

Setting up:

$ npm install url-exists

Useage:

const urlExists = require('url-exists');

urlExists('https://www.google.com', function(err, exists) {
  console.log(exists); // true 
});

urlExists('https://www.fakeurl.notreal', function(err, exists) {
  console.log(exists); // false 
});

You can also promisify it to take advantage of await and async:

const util = require('util');
const urlExists = util.promisify(require('url-exists'));

let isExists = await urlExists('https://www.google.com'); // true
isExists = await urlExists('https://www.fakeurl.notreal'); // false

Happy coding!