How to get only response headers from XMLHttpRequest

Question

Is it possible to get only response headers from XMLHttpRequest without downloading file data?

Answer 1

If the server you are making the request to supports the method, it sounds like what you want is to make an HTTP HEAD request. See the HTTP spec.

For example compare the output from curl -v -X GET https://github.com and curl -v -X HEAD https://github.com.

Also see HTTP HEAD Request in Javascript/Ajax?