A MIME type (also called a media type or content type) is a two-part label like text/html or image/png that tells software what kind of data a file or HTTP body contains. The first part is the top-level type and the second is the subtype.

Why does Content-Type matter for the web?

Browsers and servers use the Content-Type header to decide how to handle a response — render HTML, display an image, or trigger a download. A wrong type can cause a file to display as text, fail to load, or be blocked by content-sniffing protections.

What is the charset parameter on text types?

Text media types often carry a charset parameter, such as text/html; charset=utf-8, that declares the character encoding. Modern web content should almost always use utf-8 so that non-ASCII characters render correctly.

Are vendor and structured-suffix types covered?

Yes. The list includes common structured suffixes like application/ld+json and vendor types such as application/vnd.ms-excel, which use the +suffix and vnd. conventions defined by the media-type registration rules.

Is my search sent anywhere?

No. The entire media-type list ships with the page and all searching happens in your browser. Nothing is uploaded.

What is the MIME Types Lookup?

Searchable MIME / media-type reference covering text, image, audio, video, application, font and multipart types — look up the right Content-Type by file extension or by name. It runs free in your browser on Gera Tools, with nothing uploaded.

MIME Types Lookup — Gera Tools

Name: MIME Types Lookup
Creator: Gera Tools
License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

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Look up the right Content-Type, fast

Every file served over HTTP needs a correct media type — the Content-Type header that tells the browser whether to render, play, or download it. This tool lets you search a curated list of common IANA media types by file extension (png, .json, csv) or by any part of the type string (image/, pdf, +json), and copy the exact value with one click.

How it works

The page ships with a list of media-type entries, each holding the canonical type (such as application/json), its common file extensions, a human label, and its top-level category (text, image, audio, video, application, font, multipart). Your query is normalised — a leading dot is stripped and the text is lower-cased — and then matched against the type string, the extensions, and the label. Matches are grouped so an extension search like xls surfaces both the legacy application/vnd.ms-excel and the modern application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.sheet types.

The five top-level categories explained

Category	What it covers	Example
`text`	Human-readable content	`text/html`, `text/css`
`image`	Still and animated images	`image/png`, `image/webp`
`audio`	Audio streams and files	`audio/mpeg`, `audio/ogg`
`video`	Video streams and files	`video/mp4`, `video/webm`
`application`	Structured and binary data	`application/json`, `application/wasm`
`font`	Web font formats	`font/woff2`, `font/ttf`
`multipart`	Mixed content bodies	`multipart/form-data`

Structured-suffix and vendor types

Two naming conventions extend the main types:

Structured suffixes use a + to signal the encoding format inside a container. application/ld+json means JSON-LD data encoded as JSON; image/svg+xml means SVG encoded as XML. These help parsers choose the right deserializer without knowing the specific format.
Vendor types use the vnd. prefix for proprietary formats. For example, application/vnd.ms-excel is the classic .xls format and application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.sheet is .xlsx. Searching xls in this tool surfaces both.

Tips and edge cases

Always send charset=utf-8 on text types so non-ASCII characters render correctly. When serving JSON use application/json, and for JSON-LD use application/ld+json so structured-data parsers pick it up. For unknown binary data the safe default is application/octet-stream, which prompts a download rather than inline rendering.

If a browser ignores your declared type, check that you are not sending X-Content-Type-Options: nosniff together with a mismatched Content-Type — that combination will actively block the resource rather than just sniff past it.

This list covers the common cases; the full IANA registry at iana.org/assignments/media-types is the authoritative source for rare or newly registered types.