AVI MIME Type

About AVI video files

An old Windows container that browsers don’t play. Convert AVI to MP4 or WebM before putting it on a web page. video/avi and video/msvideo are also seen.

Other types seen for these files: video/avi , video/msvideo . Accept them when reading uploads, but send video/x-msvideo yourself.

File signature

AVI files start with "RIFF", then "AVI " at byte 8. The extension and the type a browser reports for an upload both come from the file name, so check these bytes on the server before trusting a file.

Serve .avi with the right Content-Type

Content-Type: video/x-msvideo

video/x-msvideo avi;

AddType video/x-msvideo .avi

@avi path *.avi
header @avi Content-Type "video/x-msvideo"

curl -sI https://example.com/file.avi | grep -i '^content-type'
# Content-Type: video/x-msvideo

Set the type in code

res.set('Content-Type', 'video/x-msvideo');
// Or make the browser download it:
res.attachment('file.avi');

import mimetypes

mimetypes.add_type('video/x-msvideo', '.avi')  # if your system doesn't know it
mimetypes.guess_type('file.avi')[0]  # 'video/x-msvideo'

mime.AddExtensionType(".avi", "video/x-msvideo")
w.Header().Set("Content-Type", "video/x-msvideo")

Accept .avi uploads

<input type="file" accept=".avi,video/x-msvideo">

The accept attribute only filters the file picker; users can still choose another file. Listing the extension as well as the type matters, because operating systems don’t always report the type you expect.

Related types

• .mp4 (video/mp4): MP4 video
• .mkv (video/x-matroska): Matroska video
• .mov (video/quicktime): QuickTime video

More video

.webm , .m3u8 , .ts . Look up any extension or type with the MIME type lookup.

Sources

• IANA Media Types registry (not listed)
• MDN: Common media types

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Frequently asked questions