Acronym for Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions

The format for modern email messages, this specifies how to encode attachments, and non-text bodies. It also includes a type system, allowing type information to be included with message parts, and a means of specifying non-ASCII text in message headers.

The MIME standards build on the message format specified in RFC:822 (now updated to RFC:2822), so a MIME message is also an RFC:822 message, hence can be sent using standard internet protocols (such as SMTP)

MIME is currently a set of 5 RFCs: 1?

• RFC:2045 - Basic specification for MIME messages
• RFC:2046 - MIME media typing system, and core type definitions
• RFC:2047 - RFC:822 extensions to allow non-ASCII data in message headers
• RFC:2048 - IANA registration procedures for MIME related facilities
• RFC:2049 - MIME conformance criteria

These documents revise older versions of the MIME standard, such as RFC:1341 and RFC:1342

1? There are a bunch of additions, but these include most of the important basics

CategoryStandards