How to Remove 'public' and 'index.php' from URL in CodeIgniter 4

Why Remove public/index.php in CodeIgniter 4?

By default, CodeIgniter 4 includespublic/index.phpin its URLs (e.g.yourdomain.com/public/index.php/home). Removing it makes your URLs cleaner, professional, and much more SEO-friendly.

Step 1: Copy index.php and .htaccess

First, copy theindex.phpand.htaccessfiles from your CodeIgniter'spublicfolder and paste them directly into your project'srootfolder.

Step 2: Update index.php

Open theindex.phpfile you just pasted in the root directory and find the following line:

$pathsPath = realpath(FCPATH . '../app/Config/Paths.php');

Change it to:

$pathsPath = realpath(FCPATH . 'app/Config/Paths.php');

(We simply removed the../because the file is now in the root folder.)

Step 3: Update App.php Configuration

Navigate toapp/Config/App.phpand find the$baseURLsetting. Make sure it points to your domain without the public folder:

public $baseURL = 'http://localhost/your-project-name/';

Next, find the$indexPagesetting and remove 'index.php' so it is completely empty:

public $indexPage = '';

Step 4: Configure .htaccess

Open the.htaccessfile in your root directory and make sure it has the following standard Apache routing configuration to remove index.php:

RewriteEngine On RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d RewriteRule ^(.*)$ index.php/$1 [L]

That's it!Now your CodeIgniter 4 URLs will work perfectly without 'public' or 'index.php'. Test it by visitingyourdomain.com/home.