Configuring maxBodyLength in Axios

By default, Axios will send arbitrarily large HTTP request bodies. The maxBodyLength option is different from the maxContentLength option: maxContentLength limits the maximum response body size, maxBodyLength limits the maximum request body size.

In Node.js, you can use the maxBodyLength option to limit the size of the HTTP request body. If the request is too big, Axios will throw a AxiosError: Request body larger than maxBodyLength limit error, and not send the request.

await axios.post('https://httpbin.org/post', { data: '0'.repeat(102) }, {  maxBodyLength: 100 });
// Throws:
/*
Uncaught [AxiosError: Request body larger than maxBodyLength limit] {
  code: 'ERR_BAD_REQUEST',
  config: {
    transitional: {
      silentJSONParsing: true,
      forcedJSONParsing: true,
      clarifyTimeoutError: false
    },
    adapter: [Function: httpAdapter],
    transformRequest: [ [Function: transformRequest] ],
    transformResponse: [ [Function: transformResponse] ],
    timeout: 0,
    xsrfCookieName: 'XSRF-TOKEN',
    xsrfHeaderName: 'X-XSRF-TOKEN',
    maxContentLength: -1,
    maxBodyLength: 100,
    env: { FormData: [Function] },
    validateStatus: [Function: validateStatus],
    headers: {
      Accept: '...',
      'Content-Type': 'application/json',
      'User-Agent': 'axios/0.27.2'
    },
    method: 'post',
    url: 'https://httpbin.org/post',
    data: '{"data":"000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000"}'
  }
}
*/

Note that the maxBodyLength option is not supported in the browser. The above axios.post() call will successfully send an HTTP in the browser, Axios won't throw any errors.

With Redirects

The primary purpose of maxBodyLength is to handle the case where you're streaming HTTP data to a URL that requires a redirect.

More Axios Tutorials