MIME types

MIME is a standard for describing different types of information This was originally meant to be used to specify encoding for different types of information into text. This made it possible to send them as e-mail.

The standard MIME is also used in other types of communication where there is a need for specifying which type of information is used. This could be your local operating system or a web server.


Mime is just a specification. Normally the information is encoded with some other standard format. When decoded it regains it original shape.

To be able to read the file you need an application that can handle the attached file. If two files, a word document and a image is sent by email they would both get encoded as mime. Upon receiving these files there need to be an application associated with each file type. Microsoft word or maybe another word processor would be associated with the word document making it possible to read the file. Photoshop or another image viewer would be associated with the image.

Normally the conversion from MIME to files is handled by the e-mail application. When the file is stored on disk it is up to the operating system to map an application to file type.