MIME File Examples

Here’s a clear explanation of each MIME type and subtype you asked about:

MIME Type	Meaning	Explanation
text/plain	Plain Text	Represents simple text without any formatting (no bold, italics, images, or links). Used for .txt files or basic message bodies in emails.
text/html (HTML documents)	HyperText Markup Language	Represents web pages written in HTML. It can include text, images, links, and formatting for browsers to render. Used for .html or .htm files.
application/x-msword (Microsoft Word)	Microsoft Word Document	Represents Word documents created by Microsoft Word (.doc format, primarily before Word 2007). It allows for rich text formatting, images, tables, and more.
application/x-compressed (WinZip)	Compressed Archive	Represents a compressed archive file, typically produced by older compression programs like WinZip (.zip). Newer standards often use application/zip.
image/gif (GIF file)	Graphics Interchange Format	Represents a GIF image, a type of raster image format supporting animation and transparency. Commonly used for simple graphics, logos, and lightweight animations.
audio/wave (Wave audio file)	WAVE Audio File	Represents audio files stored in the WAVE format (.wav). This format offers high-quality, uncompressed audio commonly used in professional audio applications.

Quick Summary

• text/ → Plain text or formatted markup.
• application/ → Software-specific or encoded data (documents, archives).
• image/ → Visual graphics.
• audio/ → Sound files.

The following are examples of other MIME types and subtypes:

1. text/plain
2. text/HTML (HTML documents)
3. application/x-msword (Microsoft Word)
4. application/x-compressed (WinZip)
5. image/GIF (GIF file)
6. audio/wave (wave audio file)

To determine the MIME type of an incoming request from a browser, a Web server typically interprets the file extension of the requested file. Most Web servers have default mapping between file extensions and MIME types. The table below shows examples of mappings to some well-known MIME types.

As new document types are added to the MIME system, you may need to provide further mapping between file extensions and MIME types.
Occasionally, following an update of graphics files on a Web site, you may find that you can access text but not graphics files. This could mean the graphic files were corrupted, or that the Web server's MIME-type setting for the graphics files may have changed.
The next lesson wraps up this module.

Click the Exercise link below to reinforce your understanding of file extensions related to MIME types.

MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions) is an internet standard that is used to describe the contents of various files. While the name MIME says Mail, it is also used for web pages.