# .parquet MIME Type: application/vnd.apache.parquet

> Columnar data files for analytics, read by DuckDB, pandas, Spark and the major data warehouses.

- MIME type: `application/vnd.apache.parquet`
- Extensions: .parquet
- Content-Type header: `application/vnd.apache.parquet`
- Compress in transit: no (already compressed)
- File signature: `50 41 52 31` (the same four bytes also end the file)

## Good to know

- The type is registered with IANA, but few servers map `.parquet` yet, so they send `application/octet-stream`.
- Parquet compresses each column internally, so gzip on top gains little.
- Query engines read the footer first and then fetch only the columns they need. If clients query files over HTTP, serve them with range-request support.

## Server configuration

### nginx (inside the types block in mime.types)

```
application/vnd.apache.parquet parquet;
```

### Apache (.htaccess or server config)

```
AddType application/vnd.apache.parquet .parquet
```

### Express

```
res.set("Content-Type", "application/vnd.apache.parquet");
```

### Python

```
import mimetypes

mimetypes.add_type("application/vnd.apache.parquet", ".parquet")
```

### HTML file input

```
<input type="file" accept=".parquet,application/vnd.apache.parquet">
```

## FAQ

### What is the MIME type for .parquet files?

`application/vnd.apache.parquet`.

### What Content-Type header should a .parquet file be served with?

`Content-Type: application/vnd.apache.parquet`. It's already compressed, so servers shouldn't gzip it.

### How can I tell if a file is really a .parquet?

Check its bytes rather than the extension: PARQUET files start with `50 41 52 31` (`PAR1`) — the same four bytes also end the file. On the command line, `file --mime-type name.parquet` does this for you.

## Related types

- [.csv — text/csv](https://www.devkult.com/mime/csv.md)
- [.ndjson — application/x-ndjson](https://www.devkult.com/mime/ndjson.md)
- [.json — application/json](https://www.devkult.com/mime/json.md)

Open the interactive page: https://www.devkult.com/mime/parquet