htaccess 301 redirect www & non-www to non-www subfolder - apache

Question

I am trying to redirect www and non-www to non-www subfolder /forums.
I am currently using this code:
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www\.example\.com$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/$
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://example.com/forums/$1 [R=301,L]
It is working well, but there are some problems with this.
If I type the URL: example.com, it brings me to example.com/forums. -OK
If I type the URL: example.com/test, it brings me to example.com/test. -OK
If I type the URL: www.example.com, it brings me to example.com/forums. -OK
If I type the URL: www.example.com/test, it brings me to example.com/forums/test. -WRONG
How do I fix the occurring error for www.example.com/test?
I want www.example.com/test to lead to example.com/test.
Please help me, thanks!

Answer 1

Try following rule in your .htaccess file:
RewriteEngine on
Options +FollowSymlinks -MultiViews
# redirect empty URL to /forums
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^(www\.)?example\.com$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^$ http://example.com/forums [R=301,L]
# non forums handler
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www\.example\.com$ [NC]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/forums [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.+)$ http://example.com/$1 [R=301,L]

Answer 2

If you don't have any other subdomains pointing at the same directory (or it doesn't matter that they are redirected too), then you might simply try this:
RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^$ /forums/ [R=301,L]
This redirects any requests to www.example.com/ and example.com/ to the subfolder /forums/ and leaves all other requests untouched.
Assuming that your given test cases are the only ones to be considered, then this should work. If you have any additional cases then the rule(s) might need to be extended.