Multi-Status

2xx Success

ELI5

I did multiple things for you - some worked, some didn't. Here's a detailed report of what happened to each item.

Use 207 mainly in WebDAV when one request needs to report separate statuses for multiple resources or properties.

•Return 207 for PROPFIND, PROPPATCH, or other WebDAV operations with mixed per-item outcomes
•Use it when one top-level status code would lose too much detail
•WebDAV bulk operations with mixed results
•PROPFIND operations returning multiple resource properties
•File system operations affecting multiple files/folders
•Binding-aware collection traversals where descendants can have different outcomes
•Bulk property updates with partial success

•No status-specific header is required; set Content-Type for the DAV multi-status body.

•Do not use 207 as a vague batch-success shortcut outside clients that understand the format
•Do not rely on the top-level 207 alone; the real detail lives in the body
•Single-resource operations with a single clear outcome
•Typical REST APIs where a normal resource representation or job resource communicates better
•Cases where the client cannot parse WebDAV multi-status XML

Request:PROPPATCH https://api.example.test/folder/

Response:

207 Multi-Status

# Headers
Content-Type: application/xml; charset=utf-8

# Body
<multistatus xmlns="DAV:">...</multistatus>

The server reports per-resource outcomes because one overall status code would hide important detail.

Request:

COPY https://api.example.test/source/

# Headers
Destination: https://api.example.test/destination/

Response:

207 Multi-Status

# Headers
Content-Type: application/xml; charset=utf-8

# Body
<multistatus xmlns="DAV:">...</multistatus>

The response body gives a per-resource report instead of pretending the whole batch had one simple outcome.

Everything worked perfectly! The server understood your request and sent back exactly what you asked for.

You asked for just a piece of a file (like pages 5-10 of a book), and here's that specific piece you wanted!

The server is saying, 'I already told you about this item earlier in the same detailed report, so I’m not repeating it.'

Your request looks right, but the data doesn't make sense according to our business rules. Fix the data and try again.

The server followed references while walking through folders and found a cycle, so it stopped instead of going in circles forever.