What is a MIME type?

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

• Media_type – Wikipedia
• Content-Type – MDN