htaccess will not give you proper result as this doesn't rewrite $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'] so Joomla routing works with bad URI

What will help is creating system plugin and replace this variable in onAfterInitialise function

if you don't need to save the URL you can use something from here http://www.inmotionhosting.com/support/website/redirects/setting-up-a-301-permanent-redirect-via-htaccess

htaccess will not give you proper result as this doesn't rewrite $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'] so Joomla routing works with bad URI

What will help is creating system plugin and replace this variable in onAfterInitialise function

if you don't need to save the URL you can use something from here http://www.inmotionhosting.com/support/website/redirects/setting-up-a-301-permanent-redirect-via-htaccess

your htaccess rule will be

RewriteRule ^folder1(/.*)$ /folder3$1 [R=301,L]

htaccess will not give you proper result as this doesn't rewrite $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'] so Joomla routing works with bad URI

What will help is creating system plugin and replace this variable in onAfterInitialise function

htaccess will not give you proper result as this doesn't rewrite $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'] so Joomla routing works with bad URI

What will help is creating system plugin and replace this variable in onAfterInitialise function

if you don't need to save the URL you can use something from here http://www.inmotionhosting.com/support/website/redirects/setting-up-a-301-permanent-redirect-via-htaccess