w3m Basic Usage

Introduction

w3m is a text-based web browser and pager with support for tables, frames, SSL connections, and inline image viewing (in compatible terminals).

Launching w3m

Start w3m by running in your terminal:

w3m [options] [URL|file]

Example:

w3m https://www.example.com

Navigation Keys

• Arrow Keys: Move between links (up/down) and scroll content (left/right).
• Enter: Follow the selected link.
• B: Go back to the previous page.
• U: Open a new URL (prompts for input).
• G: Prompt to enter a URL to go to.
• PgUp / PgDn: Jump one screen up or down.
• ^L: Refresh/redisplay the current page.
• q or Q: Quit w3m (Q quits without confirmation).

Searching

• /: Search forward for text.
• ?: Search backward for text.
• n: Move to the next search match.
• N: Move to the previous search match.

Viewing Images

In compatible terminals (e.g., iTerm2, Kitty):

• Use -I to load and display inline images:

  w3m -I https://example.com/image.png
  

• Inside w3m, press I to toggle image display on/off.

Tables and Frames

w3m can render simple tables and HTML frames. No special options are required; content is formatted for text display.

Bookmarks

• m: Bookmark the current page.
• M: Show list of bookmarks.
• S: Save bookmarks to ~/.w3m/bookmark.html.

Cookies and Sessions

• Use -cookie to enable cookie support:

  w3m -cookie https://example.com
  

• Cookies are stored by default in ~/.w3m/cookie.

Saving Content

• s: Save the current page (prompts for filename and format).
• >: Dump the current page to a text file.
• <: Load a local file into w3m.

Configuration Options

• -T text/html: Specify content type manually.
• -cols <n>: Set terminal column width for rendering.
• -o <name>=<value>: Override configuration options (e.g., -o display_link_number=1).

Help and Manual

• Press H inside w3m for a quick help screen.
• For full documentation, run:

  man w3m
  

 

w3m Use Cases

General Use Cases

• Lightweight browsing on low‑resource machines
  Ideal for systems without a graphical environment (embedded devices, headless servers, old hardware).
• Browsing over slow or unreliable links
  Text‑only rendering means pages load fast even on dial‑up, slow mobile connections, or high‑latency SSH sessions.
• Reading online documentation
  View man pages, RFCs, HOWTOs, wiki pages, or API docs in the same terminal you’re working in.
• Offline “snapshot” of pages
  Save a page as plain text (> filename.txt) for later reading or archival.
• Accessibility
  Use with speech‑to‑text tools or screen readers for visually impaired browsing.

System Administrator Use Cases

1. Quick health‑check of web services

   w3m -dump_head https://intranet.example.com/status
   

   Verify HTTP status, headers, and basic page content without leaving your SSH session.

2. Testing basic authentication and SSL

   w3m -o http_proxy=http://proxy:3128 -o ssl_verify=0 https://secure.example.com
   

   Validate proxy settings, cert acceptance, and login prompts interactively.

3. Pulling down configuration files or logs

   w3m -dump https://updates.example.com/latest-config > /tmp/config.txt
   

   Automate retrieval of device configs or patch lists in shell scripts.

4. Inline image preview for monitoring graphs
   In a terminal that supports it (Kitty, iTerm2), you can view PNG charts or dashboard snapshots:

   w3m -I https://monitor.example.com/metrics.png
   

5. Bookmarking intranet tools
   Save frequently used internal pages (e.g. ticketing system, wiki) to ~/.w3m/bookmark.html and launch with w3m -M.

Developer Use Cases

• Local HTML/CSS prototyping

  w3m file://$PWD/index.html
  

  Quickly validate that your static pages render in a text‑only environment.

• Automated link‑checking

  for url in $(cat links.txt); do
    w3m -dump_head $url | grep HTTP
  done
  

• Inline editing of pages
  Combine with vim to tweak HTML on the fly:

  w3m -dump file.html > temp.txt && vim temp.txt
  

• Script‑driven scraping or data‑extraction
  Use w3m -dump in cron jobs to pull down structured text (lists, tables) for parsing by awk/grep/jq.

• Viewing API responses
  If you host a REST endpoint that returns HTML or raw data, w3m can render it the same way a browser would—handy for debugging.

Why w3m Belongs in Your Toolkit

• Scriptable & automatable — Integrate into shell scripts, cron, or CI pipelines.
• Low dependencies — No X11, no heavy libraries—just a fast, portable binary.
• Familiar keybindings — Vi‑style and arrow keys make navigation intuitive.
• Extensible — Through -o options you can tweak everything from proxy settings to inline‑image behavior.