MIME stands for Multipurpose Internet Mail Extension, it is an external standard or specification for non-text email attachments, and it expands the possibility of what can be sent over an email.
This means it allows email clients to send attachments like audio, videos, spreadsheets, or graphics files via email. This allows you to move from being able to send just simple text characters to sending non-text characters as well, and it significantly enhances communication via email.
How MIME Works With SMTP and POP
The email is transferred from the sender to the recipient’s mailbox with SMTP as the message transfer agent, it stores the email, and then the MIME header is added to the original header to provide additional information. The POP will then organise the mail from the mail server to the receiver’s computer because it is a message access agent. POP allows the user agent to connect with the message transfer agent.
What is the MIME Header?
This contains information about the MIME in an email, it is added to the original email header to define transformation. The MIME header also contains the version of the MIME protocol that is used in the email and it must have the parameter value 1.0 to indicate the message if formatted using MIME.
MIME Pros
- It gives each email a special ID.
- It allows you to transfer, audio, text, video and other attachment files in an email message.
- MIME also allows you to send and receive emails in different languages such as French, Hindi, Chinese, Japanese and others.
- Regardless of how long the email is, MIME can convey the message in a moment.
- You will also enjoy the liberty to choose between HTML and CSS to customise and beautify your emails according to your preferences.
- The email is transferred by SMTP as the message transfer agent from the sender’s side to the mailbox of the receiver’s email client.
MIME Cons
- Since MIME requires additional information to be added to the email headers, MIME media types can significantly increase the overhead involved with content transmission, which means there will be a slower transfer rate due to the larger transferred data.
- Sometimes the recipient’s system may not interpret the MIME media type accurately and it may cause issues with how the content is displayed or generally handled.
- Some systems may not also support MIME media types, so you may experience some issues when transmitting specific kinds of content.