IP API curl Cheatsheet: 10 Essential Commands

This cheatsheet covers the 10 most useful curl commands for working with the ipinfo.im free IP API. All commands work out of the box — no API key, no configuration, just copy and paste.

1. Look Up Your Own Public IP

curl https://ipinfo.im/api/

Returns the geolocation data for the machine running the command. Great for checking what IP your server or VPN presents to the world.

Sample output:

{
  "ip": "203.0.113.45",
  "country": "US",
  "region": "California",
  "city": "San Francisco",
  "org": "AS7922 Comcast Cable Communications",
  "timezone": "America/Los_Angeles"
}

2. Look Up a Specific IP Address

curl "https://ipinfo.im/api/?ip=8.8.8.8"

Replace 8.8.8.8 with any IPv4 or IPv6 address. This is the core command you’ll use most often.

3. Pretty-Print JSON with jq

curl -s "https://ipinfo.im/api/?ip=1.1.1.1" | jq .

The -s flag suppresses the progress meter. Pipe to jq . for nicely formatted, colorized output.

Requires: jq installed (apt install jq / brew install jq)

4. Extract a Single Field

# Get only the country code
curl -s "https://ipinfo.im/api/?ip=8.8.8.8" | jq -r '.country'
# US

# Get only the city
curl -s "https://ipinfo.im/api/?ip=8.8.8.8" | jq -r '.city'
# Mountain View

# Get the ISP/organization
curl -s "https://ipinfo.im/api/?ip=8.8.8.8" | jq -r '.org'
# AS15169 Google LLC

# Get the timezone
curl -s "https://ipinfo.im/api/?ip=8.8.8.8" | jq -r '.timezone'
# America/Los_Angeles

The -r flag in jq outputs raw strings (without surrounding quotes).

5. Extract Multiple Fields at Once

curl -s "https://ipinfo.im/api/?ip=8.8.8.8" | jq '{ip, country, city, org}'

Output:

{
  "ip": "8.8.8.8",
  "country": "US",
  "city": "Mountain View",
  "org": "AS15169 Google LLC"
}

Or format as a tab-separated line for scripting:

curl -s "https://ipinfo.im/api/?ip=8.8.8.8" \
  | jq -r '[.ip, .country, .city, .org] | @tsv'
# 8.8.8.8    US    Mountain View    AS15169 Google LLC

6. Check an IP from a Shell Variable

TARGET_IP="1.1.1.1"
curl -s "https://ipinfo.im/api/?ip=${TARGET_IP}" | jq .

Useful in shell scripts where the IP comes from another command or variable.

7. Check Your VPN or Proxy IP

# Store result, then display
RESULT=$(curl -s "https://ipinfo.im/api/")
echo "IP:      $(echo $RESULT | jq -r '.ip')"
echo "Country: $(echo $RESULT | jq -r '.country')"
echo "City:    $(echo $RESULT | jq -r '.city')"
echo "ISP:     $(echo $RESULT | jq -r '.org')"

Run this before and after connecting to a VPN to confirm your apparent location has changed.

8. Bulk Lookup from a File

Given a file ips.txt with one IP per line:

# ips.txt
8.8.8.8
1.1.1.1
9.9.9.9

while IFS= read -r ip; do
  result=$(curl -s "https://ipinfo.im/api/?ip=${ip}")
  country=$(echo "$result" | jq -r '.country // "N/A"')
  city=$(echo "$result" | jq -r '.city // "N/A"')
  org=$(echo "$result" | jq -r '.org // "N/A"')
  printf "%-20s %-6s %-20s %s\n" "$ip" "$country" "$city" "$org"
  sleep 0.2  # be respectful of the free API
done < ips.txt

Output:

8.8.8.8              US     Mountain View        AS15169 Google LLC
1.1.1.1              AU     Research             AS13335 Cloudflare, Inc.
9.9.9.9              US     Berkeley             AS19281 Quad9

9. Check Response Time

curl -s -o /dev/null -w "Response time: %{time_total}s\n" \
  "https://ipinfo.im/api/?ip=8.8.8.8"

Useful for benchmarking API latency from your server’s location.

Full timing breakdown:

curl -s -o /dev/null \
  -w "DNS: %{time_namelookup}s | Connect: %{time_connect}s | Total: %{time_total}s\n" \
  "https://ipinfo.im/api/?ip=8.8.8.8"

10. Save Result to a JSON File

curl -s "https://ipinfo.im/api/?ip=8.8.8.8" \
  | jq . > ip-8.8.8.8.json

echo "Saved to ip-8.8.8.8.json"
cat ip-8.8.8.8.json

Or save a batch of lookups to a JSON array:

ips=("8.8.8.8" "1.1.1.1" "9.9.9.9")
output="[]"

for ip in "${ips[@]}"; do
  data=$(curl -s "https://ipinfo.im/api/?ip=${ip}")
  output=$(echo "$output" | jq ". + [$data]")
  sleep 0.2
done

echo "$output" | jq . > batch-results.json
echo "Results saved to batch-results.json"

Bonus: One-liner Country Check

The absolute shortest way to check an IP’s country:

curl -s "https://ipinfo.im/api/?ip=8.8.8.8" | jq -r .country

Output: US

Useful in shell conditionals:

COUNTRY=$(curl -s "https://ipinfo.im/api/?ip=${CLIENT_IP}" | jq -r '.country // "XX"')

if [ "$COUNTRY" = "US" ]; then
  echo "US visitor — show USD pricing"
else
  echo "International visitor — show local pricing"
fi

Quick Reference Table

Command	Purpose
curl https://ipinfo.im/api/	Get your own IP info
curl "https://ipinfo.im/api/?ip=X.X.X.X"	Look up a specific IP
... | jq .	Pretty-print the JSON
... | jq -r '.country'	Extract country code
... | jq -r '.org'	Extract ISP/org name
... | jq '{ip,country,city,org}'	Extract multiple fields
-s flag	Silent mode (no progress bar)
-o /dev/null -w ...	Measure response time

API Endpoint Summary

Endpoint	Description
https://ipinfo.im/api/	Caller’s own IP
https://ipinfo.im/api/?ip=<ip>	Specific IPv4/IPv6

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Want to use these lookups in a programming language? See our Python Guide or Node.js Guide. Try the live API at ipinfo.im.