CURLOPT_MAXAGE_CONN(3)

💅 CURLOPT_MAXAGE_CONN(3) — max idle time allowed for reusing a connection 💅

okay so you're in the libcurl Library Functions Manual, and this page is all about CURLOPT_MAXAGE_CONN. no cap, it's the vibe check for old cached connections 👑

🎀 NAME 🎀

CURLOPT_MAXAGE_CONN — max idle time allowed for reusing a connection.

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

#include <curl/curl.h>

CURLcode curl_easy_setopt(CURL *handle, CURLOPT_MAXAGE_CONN, long age);

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

Pass a long as parameter containing age — the maximum time in seconds allowed for an existing connection to have been idle to be considered for reuse for this request.

The "connection cache" holds previously used connections. When a new request is to be done, libcurl considers any connection that matches for reuse. The CURLOPT_MAXAGE_CONN(3) limit prevents libcurl from trying too old connections for reuse, since old connections have a higher risk of not working and thus trying them is a performance loss and sometimes service loss due to the difficulties to figure out the situation. If a connection is found in the cache that is older than this set age, it is closed instead.

🍓 DEFAULT 🍓

118 seconds

🌈 PROTOCOLS 🌈

This functionality affects all supported protocols.

🧚 EXAMPLE 🧚

int main(void)
{
  CURL *curl = curl_easy_init();
  if(curl) {
    curl_easy_setopt(curl, CURLOPT_URL, "https://example.com");

    /* only allow 30 seconds idle time */
    curl_easy_setopt(curl, CURLOPT_MAXAGE_CONN, 30L);

    curl_easy_perform(curl);
  }
}

🌸 AVAILABILITY 🌸

Added in curl 7.65.0.

💜 RETURN VALUE 💜

curl_easy_setopt(3) returns a CURLcode indicating success or error.

CURLE_OK (0) means everything was OK, non-zero means an error occurred, see libcurl-errors(3).

👑 SEE ALSO 👑

• CURLOPT_FORBID_REUSE(3)
• CURLOPT_FRESH_CONNECT(3)
• CURLOPT_MAXLIFETIME_CONN(3)
• CURLOPT_TIMEOUT(3)

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Signed off with main-character energy by libcurl, dated 2026-10-12, for CURLOPT_MAXAGE_CONN(3) 💖✨