MIME types

A MIME type — the value of the Content-Type header — is how a server says what a file is. Nothing about the filename reaches the browser, so the extension is a hint for you and the type is the fact for the client. Get it wrong and a stylesheet is ignored, a font fails to load, or a PDF downloads when it should have opened.

This page lists the extension and the type the site's own lookup tool returns for it, so the two can never disagree. Where several extensions share one type — jpg, jpeg and jpe, or yaml and yml — each is listed on its own row, because you look up the one you have.

Two rules explain most of the surprises below. A type beginning application/vnd. is a vendor's registration rather than an open standard, which is why the Office types are so long. And a type the server does not know is best sent as application/octet-stream, which tells the browser to download rather than to guess.

Web and text

text/* is the family a browser will show rather than download, and the only one where a charset parameter matters — text/html; charset=utf-8.

Extension	MIME type	What it is
.html	text/html	HTML document
.htm	text/html	HTML document, the short extension
.shtml	text/html	HTML with server-side includes
.xhtml	application/xhtml+xml	XHTML document
.css	text/css	Stylesheet
.csv	text/csv	Comma-separated values
.txt	text/plain	Plain text
.md	text/markdown	Markdown source
.ics	text/calendar	Calendar event
.xml	application/xml	XML document
.js	text/javascript	JavaScript
.mjs	text/javascript	JavaScript ES module
.json	application/json	JSON data
.jsonld	application/ld+json	JSON-LD structured data
.webmanifest	application/manifest+json	Web app manifest
.yaml	application/yaml	YAML document
.yml	application/yaml	YAML, the short extension
.toml	application/toml	TOML configuration
.sql	application/sql	SQL script
.sh	application/x-sh	Shell script
.wasm	application/wasm	WebAssembly module

Documents

The Office types are long because they encode the vendor, the standard and the part — vnd. means a vendor registration rather than an open format.

Extension	MIME type	What it is
.pdf	application/pdf	PDF document
.rtf	application/rtf	Rich text
.doc	application/msword	Word document, legacy binary
.docx	application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document	Word document
.xls	application/vnd.ms-excel	Excel workbook, legacy binary
.xlsx	application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.sheet	Excel workbook
.ppt	application/vnd.ms-powerpoint	PowerPoint presentation, legacy binary
.pptx	application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.presentationml.presentation	PowerPoint presentation
.odt	application/vnd.oasis.opendocument.text	OpenDocument text
.ods	application/vnd.oasis.opendocument.spreadsheet	OpenDocument spreadsheet
.odp	application/vnd.oasis.opendocument.presentation	OpenDocument presentation
.epub	application/epub+zip	EPUB e-book

Images

Every image type is sniffable from its first bytes, so a browser will usually render one correctly even when the server labels it wrong. SVG is the exception you should never mislabel — it is a document that can carry script.

Extension	MIME type	What it is
.png	image/png	PNG image
.jpg	image/jpeg	JPEG image
.jpeg	image/jpeg	JPEG image, the long extension
.jpe	image/jpeg	JPEG image, a rare extension
.gif	image/gif	GIF image
.webp	image/webp	WebP image
.avif	image/avif	AVIF image
.svg	image/svg+xml	SVG vector image
.bmp	image/bmp	Bitmap image
.ico	image/vnd.microsoft.icon	Icon file
.tif	image/tiff	TIFF image
.tiff	image/tiff	TIFF image, the long extension
.heic	image/heic	HEIC image
.heif	image/heif	HEIF image

Audio

Container and codec are different questions. audio/ogg says how the file is wrapped; what is inside it may be Vorbis, Opus or FLAC.

Extension	MIME type	What it is
.mp3	audio/mpeg	MP3 audio
.wav	audio/wav	WAV audio
.ogg	audio/ogg	Ogg audio
.oga	audio/ogg	Ogg audio, the explicit extension
.opus	audio/opus	Opus audio
.m4a	audio/mp4	AAC audio in an MP4 container
.flac	audio/flac	FLAC lossless audio
.weba	audio/webm	WebM audio
.aac	audio/aac	Raw AAC audio
.mid	audio/midi	MIDI sequence
.midi	audio/midi	MIDI, the long extension

Video

Streaming a video needs more than the right type — the server also has to answer range requests, or the browser downloads the whole file before it plays.

Extension	MIME type	What it is
.mp4	video/mp4	MP4 video
.m4v	video/mp4	MP4 video, Apple's extension
.webm	video/webm	WebM video
.ogv	video/ogg	Ogg video
.mov	video/quicktime	QuickTime video
.avi	video/x-msvideo	AVI video
.mkv	video/x-matroska	Matroska video
.wmv	video/x-ms-wmv	Windows Media video
.3gp	video/3gpp	3GPP mobile video

Fonts

The font/* family was registered late; older tooling still emits application/font-woff and application/x-font-ttf, which browsers accept but should not be written for anything new.

Extension	MIME type	What it is
.woff	font/woff	WOFF web font
.woff2	font/woff2	WOFF2 web font
.ttf	font/ttf	TrueType font
.otf	font/otf	OpenType font
.eot	application/vnd.ms-fontobject	Embedded OpenType, Internet Explorer only

Archives and binaries

application/octet-stream is the honest answer when nothing better is known, and it is also what forces a download instead of a render.

Extension	MIME type	What it is
.zip	application/zip	ZIP archive
.gz	application/gzip	Gzip archive
.tar	application/x-tar	Tar archive
.7z	application/x-7z-compressed	7-Zip archive
.rar	application/vnd.rar	RAR archive
.bz2	application/x-bzip2	Bzip2 archive
.iso	application/x-iso9660-image	Disc image
.bin	application/octet-stream	Unknown binary data
.exe	application/x-msdownload	Windows executable
.apk	application/vnd.android.package-archive	Android package
.deb	application/vnd.debian.binary-package	Debian package
.swf	application/x-shockwave-flash	Flash movie, long obsolete

FAQ

What happens if the MIME type is wrong?

It depends on the type. Browsers refuse a stylesheet that does not arrive as text/css and a module script that does not arrive as a JavaScript type, both on purpose. Images are sniffed from their first bytes and usually survive a wrong label. And anything served as text/plain is shown rather than downloaded.

Is text/javascript or application/javascript correct?

text/javascript. It was the historical form, application/javascript replaced it, and the current standard has gone back to text/javascript and marks the other obsolete. Every browser accepts both, so this only matters for what you write in new configuration.

Why is the Word .docx type so long?

Because it encodes the whole path to the format: a vendor registration (vnd.), the OOXML family, and which of that family's documents it is. The length is the price of a registry entry that cannot collide with anyone else's.

Do I need a charset on every type?

Only on text types, and in practice only where the default would be wrong. text/html; charset=utf-8 is worth being explicit about; image/png; charset=utf-8 is meaningless. JSON is defined as UTF-8 already, so application/json takes no charset.

How do I look one up quickly?

The MIME type lookup tool on this site converts a list of extensions to types, or types back to extensions, and can emit the result as an nginx or Apache configuration block.

MIME types

Web and text#

Documents#

Images#

Audio#

Video#

Fonts#

Archives and binaries#

FAQ

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