text/html MIME Type — HTML Content-Type & Server Configuration
HyperText Markup Language. The foundation of the web — the format browsers use to render web pages. Returned by web servers for all HTML pages and is the default type for browser navigation.
Used For
- Web pages served by HTTP servers
- Email HTML templates (multipart/alternative)
- Server-side rendered pages
HTTP Header Example
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8
Cache-Control: no-cache
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en"><head>...</head><body>...</body></html>Code Examples
// Express — send HTML string
app.get('/', (req, res) => {
res.set('Content-Type', 'text/html; charset=utf-8').send(
'<!DOCTYPE html><html><body><h1>Hello</h1></body></html>'
)
})
// Or use res.sendFile for static HTML
app.get('/about', (req, res) => res.sendFile('about.html', { root: './public' }))
// Next.js — page components return text/html automatically
// No manual Content-Type neededRelated MIME Types
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the text/html MIME type?
HyperText Markup Language. The foundation of the web — the format browsers use to render web pages. Returned by web servers for all HTML pages and is the default type for browser navigation.
When should I set Content-Type: text/html?
Set Content-Type: text/html on HTTP responses that contain HTML data. Web pages served by HTTP servers.
What file extensions use text/html?
Files with text/html content typically use these extensions: .html, .htm.
What happens if I serve this with the wrong Content-Type?
Browsers use the Content-Type header to decide how to handle the response. Serving text/html content with an incorrect MIME type can cause browsers to display it incorrectly, refuse to execute it (scripts), or prompt an unintended download. Modern browsers respect X-Content-Type-Options: nosniff and will not attempt to auto-detect the type.