Custom MIME types

How MIME types work

When a web server sends a web page, image, document or streaming content to a visitor's browser, it includes header information which describes the format of the file being served. This allows web browsers to appropriately display images, play music files, or open Word, Excel, PDF, or any other document.

The web server can recognize many different file formats and provide the correct MIME type to browsers. If you have a type of file on your website which is not known to the server, it might display incorrectly, your browser might prompt you to download the file instead of displaying it, or it may show a "not found" error. In this case, you need to set up a custom MIME type.

Creating custom MIME types

If your website is hosted on Windows Server, contact us to set up custom MIME types.

If your website is hosted on Unix, you can use the .htaccess directive file to create your own custom MIME types.

Create a text filed called .htaccess that will contain your custom MIME types. Upload the file to the appropriate folder where you want the MIME types to take effect. If you want them to take effect for your whole website, upload .htaccess to the root of your web document folder (where your website's home page is located).

If an .htaccess file already exists in the location you want to upload, add your MIME type directives at the end of the existing file.

The contents of your .htaccess file should contain lines similar to the following.

The first word, AddType, is a directive that indicates you are adding a custom MIME type. The second part, example-type, is the MIME type you want to add, and the last part, .ext, is the filename extension associated with your MIME type. If you need more than one extension, separate them with spaces.