MIME Extensions to Internet Mail

MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions) grew out of a need to encapsulate messages within messages. It now includes multipart messages that can consist of a variety of file types such as images, audio, and video.

MIME is consistent with Internet mail protocols using headers and bodies. It allows for transmission of 7-bit printable US-ASCII characters and maximum 1000-character lines in message bodies over all Internet mail transports. It has become the most widely used extension to the simple e-mail standard (see About Simple Internet (RFC 822) Messages). It is also used as a transport mechanism in Web pages.