Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions

In the context of computing, MIME (aka Multi-Purpose Internet Mail Extensions) can be defined as an addition of the original Internet e-mail protocol that enables web users to utilize the protocol so as to interchange different types of data files through the medium of the online platform i.e.

Internet: whether it is audio or video files, pictures, application programs, and any other type, as well as the ASCII text managed in the original protocol, the Simple Mail Transport Protocol (SMTP). In the year 1991, Nathan Borenstein of Bellcore put forward the request in front of the IETF that SMTP needs to be extended so that Internet (particularly Web) customers and web servers could identify and manage other types of data than ASCII text. Consequently, new file types were all put in together (i.e. mail) as a sustained Internet Protocol file type.

Servers insert the MIME header at the initial stages of any kind of web communication. Customers use this header so as to choose an applicable player application for the type of data that the header designates. On the other hand, some of these players are fabricated into the web client or browser (for instance, all browsers come with GIF and JPEG image players, as well as the capability to manage the HTML files); other players may have downloaded the same.

However, the new MIME data types are listed with the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA).