Which MIME type to use for a binary file that's specific to my program?

mime-types mime
Powerbook165c picture Powerbook165c · Jul 22, 2011 · Viewed 173.2k times · Source

My program uses its own binary file type, so I assume I can't use MIME type text/plain, as it is not a 7-bit ASCII file.

Should I just call it "application/myappname"?

Answer

user786653 picture user786653 · Jul 22, 2011

I'd recommend application/octet-stream as RFC2046 says "The "octet-stream" subtype is used to indicate that a body contains arbitrary binary data" and "The recommended action for an implementation that receives an "application/octet-stream" entity is to simply offer to put the data in a file[...]".

I think that way you will get better handling from arbitrary programs, that might barf when encountering your unknown mime type.

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