Remove .html and .php extensions with .htaccess

@armanP's accepted answer above does not remove .php extension from php urls. It just makes it possible to access php files without using .php at the end. For example /file.php can be accessed using /file or /file.php but this way you have 2 diffrent urls pointing to the same location.

If you want to remove .php completely, you can use the following rules in /.htaccess :

RewriteEngine on #redirect /file.php to /file RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} \s/([^.]+)\.php [NC] RewriteRule ^ /%1 [NE,L,R] # now we will internally map /file to /file.php RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}.php -f RewriteRule ^(.*)/?$ /$1.php [L] 

To remove .html ,use this

 RewriteEngine on #redirect /file.html to /file RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} \s/([^.]+)\.html [NC] RewriteRule ^ /%1 [NE,L,R] # now we will internally map /file to/ file.html RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}.html -f RewriteRule ^(.*)/?$ /$1.html [L] 

Solution for Apache 2.4* users :

If your apache version is 2.4 ,you can use the Code without RewriteConditions On Apache 2.4 we can use END flag instead of the RewriteCond to prevent Infinite loop error.

Here is a solution for Apache 2.4 users

 RewriteEngine on #redirect /file.php to /file RewriteRule ^(.+).php$ /$1 [L,R] # now we will internally map /file to /file.php RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}.php -f RewriteRule ^(.*)/?$ /$1.php [END] 

Note : If your external stylesheet or images aren't loading after adding these rules ,to fix this you can either make your links absolute changing <img src="foo.png> to <img src="/foo.png> .Notice the / before the filename . or change the URI base add the following to head section of your Web page <base href="/"> .

Your Webpage fails to load css and js due to the following reason :

When your browser url changes from /file.php to /file server thinks that /file is a directory and it tries to append that in front of all relative paths . For example : when your url is http://example.com/file/ your relative path changes to <img src "/file/foo.png"> thus the image fails to load . You can use one of the solutions I mentioned in the last peragraph to solve this issue.

Here is the fix for the internal path when removing .php (using code above as a reference).

# Start of Apache Rewrite Rules <IfModule mod_rewrite.c> Options +FollowSymLinks RewriteEngine On RewriteBase # From http:// to https:// RewriteCond %{ENV:HTTPS} !=on RewriteRule ^.*$ https://%{SERVER_NAME}%{REQUEST_URI} [R,L] # Redirect /file.php to /file with POST (enabled) RewriteCond %{REQUEST_METHOD} !POST RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} \s/([^.]+)\.php [NC] RewriteRule ^ /%1 [NE,L,R] # Add trailing slash to url RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !(\.[a-zA-Z0-9]{1,5}|/|#(.*))$ RewriteRule ^(.*)$ $1/ [L] # Remove .php-extension from url RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}\.php -f RewriteRule ^([^\.]+)/$ $1.php </IfModule> # End of Apache Rewrite Rules 

Note:

Above is the code for accepting URL without .php, URL with .php will be transformed without .php (.php will be removed) all files/folders with their respective path will open normally without any issue, also post & get method will work just fine.