Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) is a standard that extends the format of email messages to support various content types beyond simple text, enabling the exchange of multimedia content, files, and non-textual data through email systems.
Developed initially in the early 1990s, MIME allows emails to contain not only plain text but also attachments, images, audio, video, and other types of files. This standard defines a set of rules and specifications for encoding and formatting these diverse types of content within email messages in a way that is compatible across different email systems and platforms. Originally a standard for defining the types of files attached to standard Internet mail messages. The MIME standard has come to be used in many situations where one computer programmes needs to communicate with another programme about what kind of file is being sent.