M3U8 MIME Type

About HLS playlist files

An .m3u8 file is a text playlist that points to short video segments (.ts or fMP4). Safari plays HLS natively in <video>; other browsers need a library such as hls.js. Players cross-origin need CORS headers on both the playlist and the segments, and the playlist should not be cached for long during live streams.

Other types seen for these files: application/x-mpegURL , audio/mpegurl . Accept them when reading uploads, but send application/vnd.apple.mpegurl yourself.

File signature

M3U8 files start with "#EXTM3U". 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 .m3u8 with the right Content-Type

Content-Type: application/vnd.apple.mpegurl; charset=utf-8

application/vnd.apple.mpegurl m3u8;

AddType application/vnd.apple.mpegurl .m3u8
AddCharset UTF-8 .m3u8

@m3u8 path *.m3u8
header @m3u8 Content-Type "application/vnd.apple.mpegurl; charset=utf-8"

curl -sI https://example.com/file.m3u8 | grep -i '^content-type'
# Content-Type: application/vnd.apple.mpegurl; charset=utf-8

Set the type in code

res.set('Content-Type', 'application/vnd.apple.mpegurl; charset=utf-8');

import mimetypes

mimetypes.add_type('application/vnd.apple.mpegurl', '.m3u8')  # if your system doesn't know it
mimetypes.guess_type('file.m3u8')[0]  # 'application/vnd.apple.mpegurl'

mime.AddExtensionType(".m3u8", "application/vnd.apple.mpegurl; charset=utf-8")
w.Header().Set("Content-Type", "application/vnd.apple.mpegurl; charset=utf-8")

Accept .m3u8 uploads

<input type="file" accept=".m3u8,application/vnd.apple.mpegurl">

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

• .ts (video/mp2t): MPEG transport stream
• .mp4 (video/mp4): MP4 video
• .vtt (text/vtt): WebVTT subtitles

More video

.webm , .mov , .avi , .mkv . Look up any extension or type with the MIME type lookup.

Sources

• IANA registration: application/vnd.apple.mpegurl
• MDN: Common media types

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Frequently asked questions