Digital Toolchest

Common MIME Types List

Get a clean, copy-ready list of common mime types for real-world development workflows.

Common MIME types(22 MIME types)

Focused on widely used MIME types across the web stack; not an exhaustive registry dump.

How to use this list

Use common mime types in 3 steps

Takes ~5 seconds
  1. 1
    Choose a format

    Pick text, JSON, or HTML output.

  2. 2
    Copy or download

    Use one-click copy or download the generated list.

  3. 3
    Apply in your workflow

    Use in upload validation, API docs, test data, or tooling configs.

Use HTML output to generate ready-to-paste <option> tags instantly.

Common use cases

  • Developers implementing file uploads and content-type validation
  • QA engineers building media and document test matrices
  • Platform teams standardizing MIME handling across services

Examples

Common MIME type entry.

Input
application/json
Output
application/json

Additional MIME type in the same list.

Input
image/png
Output
image/png

HTML output for select controls.

Input
application/json
Output
<option value="application/json">application/json</option>

Reliable Common MIME types reference

This list helps teams keep common mime types consistent across APIs, uploads, docs, and frontend experiences.

Most projects only ever need a handful of MIME types, but they're scattered across separate document, image, audio, and video categories in the full IANA registry. This list pulls the 22 most commonly needed types — application/json, application/pdf, image/webp, font/woff2, video/mp4, and similar everyday entries — into one copy-ready reference in text, JSON, or HTML <option> format. Use it as a starting allowlist for upload validation, a quick answer for "what's the Content-Type for this file," or a baseline before you dig into the more specific application, audio, image, or video MIME type lists.

One list, every category

Pulls the most-needed types from documents, images, audio, video, and fonts into a single reference instead of six separate lookups.

  • application/json, application/pdf, application/zip
  • image/png, image/svg+xml, image/webp
  • font/woff2, video/mp4, audio/mpeg
Sized for everyday use

22 types that cover the overwhelming majority of real-world upload, API, and content-type work — not a 1,000-row registry dump.

  • Curated, not exhaustive
  • Deterministic ordering
  • Consistent labels
One click, three formats

Grab the list as plain text, a JSON array, or ready-to-paste HTML <option> tags.

  • Plain text list
  • JSON array
  • HTML <option> tags

Using this list as an upload allowlist

A curated list is a good starting allowlist, but it shouldn't be the only check on an upload endpoint.

  • Validate the Content-Type header against this list before trusting a client-supplied file type.
  • Cross-check the declared MIME type against the file's actual extension to catch mismatched or spoofed uploads.
  • Fall back to application/octet-stream only when the real type genuinely can't be determined, not as a default.

Frequently asked questions

Does this cover every registered MIME type?>
No. This is a curated set of the ones you'll actually hit day to day. For a specific category, see the dedicated application, audio, image, or video MIME type lists.
Why is multipart/form-data in a MIME type list?>
It's the Content-Type used for the request itself when a form includes file uploads, not a file format on its own — it's included here because you'll encounter it constantly when handling uploads.
Is this list safe to use as a strict upload allowlist?>
It's a solid starting point, but add or remove entries based on what your application actually needs to accept — a shorter allowlist is safer than a longer one.

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