What Is MIME?
MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions) is a standard yet flexible message format that is used to represent messages for transmission over the Internet. The MIME extensions were added to the Simple Mail Transport Protocol (SMTP) to allow e-mail transmissions to carry more than simple, 7-bit, textual messages.
The MIME standards allow for the transmission of:
Non-textual content such as images, audio clips, and other binary files
Messages in character sets other than US-ASCII
Multiple files in a single transmission
Although originally developed for the SMTP protocol, MIME can be used by other Internet technologies (such as HTTP) as a standard messaging format.