Some web servers use the HTTP Referer header to decide whether to serve files, alter responses, or block direct access to download URLs, so sending a custom referer enables scripted downloads that behave more like clicks from a browser page.

The HTTP Referer header carries the URL of the page that initiated a request, and the wget client exposes this value through the --referer option, which injects a chosen URL into the outgoing request while still following redirects, cookies, and other HTTP behavior.

Incorrect or abusive referer spoofing can violate site policies, trigger rate limits, or cause IP bans, so usage must respect terms of service and legal constraints, and any automation should remain conservative and limited to sources that explicitly permit scripted access.

Related: How to send custom headers with wget

Steps to set a custom referer in wget:

  1. Open a terminal on a Linux system with wget available. 
    $ wget --version
GNU Wget 1.21.4 built on linux-gnu.

-cares +digest -gpgme +https +ipv6 +iri +large-file -metalink +nls 
+ntlm +opie +psl +ssl/openssl 

Wgetrc: 
    /etc/wgetrc (system)
Locale: 
    /usr/share/locale 
Compile: 
    gcc -DHAVE_CONFIG_H -DSYSTEM_WGETRC="/etc/wgetrc" 
    -DLOCALEDIR="/usr/share/locale" -I. -I../../src -I../lib 
    -I../../lib -Wdate-time -D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=3 -DHAVE_LIBSSL -DNDEBUG 
    -g -O2 -fno-omit-frame-pointer -mno-omit-leaf-frame-pointer 
    -ffile-prefix-map=/build/wget-SlgjzS/wget-1.21.4=. -flto=auto 
    -ffat-lto-objects -fstack-protector-strong -fstack-clash-protection 
    -Wformat -Werror=format-security -mbranch-protection=standard 
    -fdebug-prefix-map=/build/wget-SlgjzS/wget-1.21.4=/usr/src/wget-1.21.4-1ubuntu4.1 
    -DNO_SSLv2 -D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64 -g -Wall 
Link: 
    gcc -DHAVE_LIBSSL -DNDEBUG -g -O2 -fno-omit-frame-pointer 
    -mno-omit-leaf-frame-pointer 
    -ffile-prefix-map=/build/wget-SlgjzS/wget-1.21.4=. -flto=auto 
    -ffat-lto-objects -fstack-protector-strong -fstack-clash-protection 
    -Wformat -Werror=format-security -mbranch-protection=standard 
    -fdebug-prefix-map=/build/wget-SlgjzS/wget-1.21.4=/usr/src/wget-1.21.4-1ubuntu4.1 
    -DNO_SSLv2 -D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64 -g -Wall -Wl,-Bsymbolic-functions 
    -flto=auto -ffat-lto-objects -Wl,-z,relro -Wl,-z,now -lpcre2-8 
    -luuid -lidn2 -lssl -lcrypto -lz -lpsl ../lib/libgnu.a 

Copyright (C) 2015 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later
<http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>.
This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it.
There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.

Originally written by Hrvoje Niksic <hniksic@xemacs.org>.
Please send bug reports and questions to <bug-wget@gnu.org>.

    Version output confirms that wget is installed and ready to send HTTP requests with custom headers.

  2. Send a download request with a specific referer using the --referer option and a target URL. 
    $ wget --referer=https://www.example.com/download-page/ https://downloads.example.net/data.tar.gz
--2026-01-10 04:48:08--  https://downloads.example.net/data.tar.gz
Resolving downloads.example.net (downloads.example.net)... 203.0.113.50
Connecting to downloads.example.net (downloads.example.net)|203.0.113.50|:443... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: 1048576 (1.0M) [application/gzip]
Saving to: 'data.tar.gz'

     0K .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........  4%  475M 0s
    50K .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........  9%  470M 0s
   100K .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... 14%  708M 0s
   150K .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... 19%  557M 0s
   200K .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... 24%  355M 0s
   250K .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... 29%  538M 0s
   300K .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... 34%  636M 0s
   350K .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... 39%  579M 0s
   400K .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... 43%  520M 0s
   450K .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... 48%  518M 0s
   500K .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... 53%  750M 0s
   550K .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... 58%  513M 0s
   600K .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... 63%  720M 0s
   650K .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... 68%  701M 0s
   700K .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... 73%  735M 0s
   750K .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... 78%  473M 0s
   800K .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... 83%  467M 0s
   850K .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... 87%  366M 0s
   900K .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... 92%  616M 0s
   950K .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... 97%  512M 0s
  1000K .......... .......... ....                            100% 1.08G=0.002s

2026-01-10 04:48:08 (543 MB/s) - 'data.tar.gz' saved [1048576/1048576]

    The --referer flag sets the outgoing Referer header to https://www.example.com/download-page/// while the file content is fetched from https://downloads.example.net// .

  3. Adjust the referer URL so that it matches the real page that normally exposes the download link. 
    $ wget --referer="https://www.example.com/download?from=newsletter&utm_source=mail" \
       https://downloads.example.net/files/tool.tar.gz

    Wrapping the referer URL in quotes avoids shell parsing issues when query strings or special characters appear in the value.

  4. Combine a custom referer with a browser-like User-Agent string and optional extra headers when a server validates multiple request fields. 
    $ wget --referer=https://www.example.com/download-page/ \
       --user-agent="Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36" \
       --header="Accept-Language: en-US,en;q=0.9" \
       https://downloads.example.net/data.tar.gz

    Sending misleading headers to bypass access controls or geographic restrictions may breach site terms of service and can result in account suspension or IP blocking.

  5. Verify that the downloaded file matches the expected size and file type. 
    $ ls -lh data.tar.gz
-rw-r--r-- 1 user user 1.0M Jan 10 04:05 data.tar.gz

    Success signals include an HTTP status like 200 OK in the wget output, a nonzero file size from ls -lh, and a valid file type reported by the file command.