diff --git a/mitmproxy/addons/export.py b/mitmproxy/addons/export.py
index 638a1e2e5..80413ac99 100644
--- a/mitmproxy/addons/export.py
+++ b/mitmproxy/addons/export.py
@@ -30,6 +30,7 @@ def cleanup_request(f: flow.Flow) -> http.HTTPRequest:
 def request_content_for_console(request: http.HTTPRequest) -> str:
     try:
         text = request.get_text(strict=True)
+        assert text
     except ValueError:
         # shlex.quote doesn't support a bytes object
         # see https://github.com/python/cpython/pull/10871
diff --git a/test/mitmproxy/addons/test_export.py b/test/mitmproxy/addons/test_export.py
index 1c16afb26..4b9057229 100644
--- a/test/mitmproxy/addons/test_export.py
+++ b/test/mitmproxy/addons/test_export.py
@@ -77,6 +77,14 @@ class TestExportCurlCommand:
         assert shlex.split(command)[-2] == '-d'
         assert shlex.split(command)[-1] == "'&#"
 
+    def test_strip_unnecessary(self, get_request):
+        get_request.request.headers.clear()
+        get_request.request.headers["host"] = "address"
+        get_request.request.headers[":authority"] = "address"
+        get_request.request.headers["accept-encoding"] = "br"
+        result = """curl --compressed 'http://address:22/path?a=foo&a=bar&b=baz'"""
+        assert export.curl_command(get_request) == result
+
 
 class TestExportHttpieCommand:
     def test_get(self, get_request):