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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-05-13T11:17:18+00:00

What is the difference between image/png and image/x-png?

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What is the difference between “image/png” and “image/x-png”?

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  1. Editorial Team

    The x- prefix is given to non-standard MIME types (i. e. not registered with IANA). So I assume that image/x-png would have been PNG before the MIME type was standardized.

    6.3. New Content-Transfer-Encodings

    Implementors may, if necessary, define private Content-Transfer-Encoding values, but must use an x-token, which is a name prefixed by “X-”, to indicate its non-standard status, e. g., “Content-Transfer-Encoding: x-my-new-encoding”. Additional standardized Content-Transfer-Encoding values must be specified by a standards-track RFC.
    The requirements such specifications must meet are given in RFC 2048.
    As such, all content-transfer-encoding namespace except that
    beginning with “X-” is explicitly reserved to the IETF for future
    use.

    —RFC 2045 — Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions, Section 6.3

    This is also documented in the PNG specification. See FalseVinylShrub’s answer.

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