How to Check if File Exists on Remote Server using PHP

In this tutorial, we will learn about how to check if file exists on remote server using PHP with easy and simple methods.

Although, PHP provides a build in file_exists() function to check if file exist on server. However, this function is not able to check remote file on remote server.

So how can one check if a file exists from a URL using PHP without file_exists() function.

PHP provides alternatives functions and we will use other methods that will check if remote file exist on remote server using PHP.

There are two ways to check file on remote server in PHP which are listed below:

fopen() Function
cURL Method

1. fopen() Function

The best and the easiest way to check if file exist on remote server is using a fopen() function in PHP.

You can use the following code to check if remote file exist using PHP.

// Remote file URL
$remote_file_url = 'https://www.example.com/pdf/filename.pdf';

// Open file using fopen() function
$file_exist = @fopen($remote_file_url, 'r');

// Check if file exists on remote server
if($file_exist){
    echo 'Remote file exists.';
}else{
    echo 'Remote file is not found!';
}

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2. cURL Method

Alternatively, you can also use cURL Method to check if remote file exist on remote server using PHP.

Use the following code snippet to check if file exist from a URL on remote server using PHP.

// Remote file URL
$remote_file_url = 'https://www.example.com/pdf/filename.pdf';

// Initialize a cURL session
$curl = curl_init($remote_file_url);

// Set CURLOPT_NOBODY true to exclude body from output
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_NOBODY, true);

//Execute the current cURL session
curl_exec($curl);

// Get an HTTP response code
$response_code = curl_getinfo($curl, CURLINFO_HTTP_CODE);

// Close cURL session
curl_close($curl);

// Check if file exists on remote server
if($response_code == 200){
    echo 'Remote file exists.';
}else{
    echo 'Remote file is not found!';
}