MIME (Multi-Purpose Internet Mail Extension)
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The MIME Misc file format
MIME files have nothing to do with the mime type of a file. Instead, they are encoded files that are used by many e-mail programs like Mozilla Thunderbird, Microsoft Outlook, Apple Mail, and more. These files improve the support of file attachments to e-mails. Furthermore, they support more characters than other formats, increasing the set of supported characters in e-mails.
Technical details of MIME files
A MIME file contains 8-bit encoded data. The characters used include ASCII characters but also some other characters that are not part of this character set. Other formats typically support 7-bit encoded data only. If an e-mail program is not recognizing or able to open MIME files, they can also be de-compressed with decompression programs such as WinZip.
More information about the MIME file format
| File extension | .mime |
| File category | Misc |
| Associated programs | Apple Mail (Mac) Corel WinZip (Windows) Kmail (Linux) Microsoft Outlook (Windows) Microsoft Outlook Express (Windows & Mac) Mozilla Thunderbird (Windows & Mac) Smith Micro Stuffit (Windows & Mac) |
| Useful links | More info about MIME files & encoding |
| Developer | The Internet Engineering Task Force |