What is a MIME type?
11 March 2022 (Updated 11 March 2022)
A MIME type (aka media type) is metadata that describes the type of a HTTP resource. Web browsers and clients usually specify the mime type of their request by including a Content-Type
header (e.g., Content-Type: text/html
). Web servers also add a Content-Type
header to help web browsers and clients to render or manipulate the response correctly.
In short, here are some uses of a MIME type:
- Clients find out what sort of data it received and so how to render it.
- Servers can restrict the type of data that a client can send (e.g., only
json
). - Clients request a specific type (amongst many possibilities) from the server ( e.g.,
json
,html
,xml
, etc).
Sources
Tagged:
HTTP