What is the MIME type of .txt files?
The MIME type (media type) for Plain text files with the .txt extension is text/plain. Send text/plain; charset=utf-8; without a charset, browsers may display non-ASCII characters incorrectly. Also used for robots.txt, llms.txt and ads.txt.
Content-Type header
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8Text-based types should include a charset so the browser decodes characters correctly.
Server configuration
| Server | Configuration |
|---|---|
Nginx (mime.types or types {}) | text/plain txt; |
Apache (.htaccess) | AddType text/plain .txt |
IIS (web.config) | <mimeMap fileExtension=".txt" mimeType="text/plain" /> |
| Node.js / Express | res.type('txt') or res.setHeader('Content-Type', 'text/plain; charset=utf-8') |
| Amazon S3 | Set Content-Type: text/plain on the object (metadata), or pass --content-type text/plain to aws s3 cp |
Should .txt files be compressed?
Yes. Plain text is text, so enabling gzip or Brotli for text/plain typically saves 50–80 % of the transfer size. Make sure your server’s compression list includes this type — check with the website compression test.
Why the MIME type matters
Browsers decide what to do with a response — render, run, play or download — from the Content-Type header, not the file extension. With X-Content-Type-Options: nosniff, a wrong type causes stylesheets and scripts to be blocked outright. For uploads, never trust the type sent by the client; check the file’s content (its magic bytes) on the server.
Frequently asked questions
What is the MIME type for .txt?
text/plain.How do I set the Content-Type for .txt in Nginx?
text/plain txt; is listed in the types block (usually in /etc/nginx/mime.types) and reload Nginx.