Capterra Glossary
MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extension)
Multipurpose internet mail extension (MIME)is an internet standard that specifies the formatting of email messages containing data other than the American standard code for information interchange (ASCII) character sets.
Earlier, users shared emails via simple mail transfer protocol (SMTP), which was incapable of sending emails that contained content other than the American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII) character sets. MIME extended the capabilities of SMTP by using customer headers to send email messages that contain multimedia attachments. MIME enables businesses to send and receive audio, video, and other multimedia files over an internet mail system.
In the hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP), web servers often insert MIME headers at the beginning of web transmissions, which allows web browsing applications to display files that are not in HTML format.
What Small and Midsize Businesses Need to Know About MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extension)
Small to midsize businesses that use an email provider to send emails with audio, video, image, or document attachments use MIME. Without this extension, email users would only be able to send text-based emails to their co-workers, internal stakeholders, and every other individual outside the business. This would severely hinder company communications.