What is a MIME format in an email?

MIME-formatted E-mail may contain other types of data in a message, such as multimedia elements.

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Basic Internet e mail protocol called Simple Mail Transfer Protocol, SMTP, supports only the transfer of 7-bit ASCII-characters. This limits the size and the types of messages that can be sent. Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions, or MIME shortly, outperforms SMTP this that contain e-Mail messages to multiple objects, and 8-bit binary data. MIME is only limited by the ability of special Web-browser to decrypt the content.

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MIME is enforced an encoding standard by the Internet Engineering Task Force, or IETF. MIME extends SMTP binary data by memory the transmission of multimedia and other ASCII format. This is done by using MIME types with markup tags describing the content of the document.

How it works

In General has the sender e-Mail program MIME types and subtypes to an e-Mail message. The recipient's E-Mail program uses a default set of document tabs to decrypt the message. As each item is decoded, depends on the type of Internet browser installed on the recipient's computer. Get decode different schemas Web browser, although most will contain items, HTML Hypertext Transfer Protocol are common. Non-text elements use the base-64 encoding scheme.

MIME requirements

MIME-formatted e-Mail messages contain a header and body. The header is stored information about the MIME-version and data types. The body of the MIME message is optional, and can include four elements. The first is the content-type, indicating the type and subtype of data contained. Next defined content-transfer-header encoding, as e-Mail software will be to convert the data in the e-Mail. The content-disposition header are encoded the content types in the message. Finally, the content ID identification information provides multipart e-Mail message.

MIME types and subtypes

MIME types and subtypes are the components that can contain users in an e-Mail. The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority IANA has 10 binary data types, such as application, audio, example, image, message, model, multipart, text and video defined. Sub-types describing the characteristics of each binary. For example, "Plain" or "HTML" further describes the MIME type "Text".

ReferencesMicrosoft-press computer dictionary, third edition; Microsoft Press; 1997Hunny-Software: the MIME information StartseiteWir MIME and content conversion in Exchange 2000 Server and Exchange Server 2003Internet assigned numbers authority: MIME media TypesResourcesNetwork world: the MIME types: how E-Mail forever changed two Internet gurus; Jon BrodkinPhoto credit Stockbyte/Stockbyte/Getty ImagesRead continue:

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