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Common MIME Types Explained

The MIME types you send and receive most often, grouped by family: text, application data, images, audio and video, and forms. Each row pairs the type with its file extensions.

A MIME type labels what a piece of content is, so browsers and servers handle it correctly. It has two parts, type/subtype, and is sent in the Content-Type header. Get it wrong and a script refuses to run, a file downloads instead of displaying, or a form upload is rejected. The values below are the ones that cover almost everything you will serve.

Reference table · 53 entries
53 of 53 rows
Text & code
HTML documents..html, .htm
CSS stylesheets..css
Unformatted text..txt
Comma-separated values..csv
Markdown..md, .markdown
JavaScript (the modern standard type)..js, .mjs
The legacy alias for JavaScript; older servers still send it..js
Python source; the x- prefix marks languages with no registered type..py
Server-sent events, a one-way stream from server to client.(stream)
Application data
JSON, the default for APIs..json
XML documents..xml
PDF documents..pdf
A ZIP archive..zip
Gzip-compressed data..gz
A tar archive..tar
Bzip2-compressed data..bz2
7-Zip archives..7z
RAR archives..rar
WebAssembly binary..wasm
Rich text documents..rtf
Word documents, the legacy binary format..doc
Word documents..docx
Excel workbooks, the legacy binary format..xls
Excel workbooks..xlsx
PowerPoint presentations..pptx
EPUB e-books..epub
WOFF web fonts..woff
WOFF2 web fonts, the current standard..woff2
YAML documents..yaml, .yml
Web app manifests for installable PWAs..webmanifest
Arbitrary binary; the fallback that forces a download..bin
Images
PNG images, with transparency..png
JPEG photographs..jpg, .jpeg
GIF images and short animations..gif
WebP, modern and compact..webp
Scalable vector graphics..svg
AVIF, high efficiency..avif
PNG with animation..png
HEIF images; HEIC is the iPhone variant..heic, .heif
Favicon and shortcut icons..ico, .cur
TIFF images, common in print..tif, .tiff
Audio & video
MP3 audio..mp3
Ogg audio..ogg, .oga
Uncompressed PCM audio..wav
FLAC, lossless compressed audio..flac
WebM audio..weba
MP4 video..mp4
WebM video..webm
QuickTime video..mov
AVI video..avi
Ogg video..ogv
Forms & upload
A default HTML form submission.(form body)
A form upload with files.(form body)