.py MIME type

Q: What Content-Type header should a .py file be served with?

Content-Type: text/x-python; charset=utf-8. As a text format, include the charset so browsers don't guess the encoding. It compresses well, so let the server apply gzip or Brotli.

Python sourcetext & code

text/x-python

Python source files. Unregistered; text/x-python is what Python's own mimetypes module returns.

MIME type	text/x-python
Extensions	.py
Content-Type	text/x-python; charset=utf-8
Compress in transit?	Yes — enable gzip or Brotli

Good to know

A web server sends .py files as plain downloads unless a CGI or WSGI handler is configured for them — keep source with secrets out of the web root.
Compiled bytecode (.pyc) is application/x-python-code.

Serve .py files with the right type

The response header to send:

Content-Type: text/x-python; charset=utf-8

Most servers pick the type from the file extension. If yours sends the wrong one, map it explicitly:

nginx (inside the types block in mime.types)

text/x-python py;

Apache (.htaccess or server config)

AddType text/x-python .py

Express

res.set("Content-Type", "text/x-python; charset=utf-8");

Python

import mimetypes

mimetypes.add_type("text/x-python", ".py")

HTML file input

<input type="file" accept=".py,text/x-python">

Check it

See what a server sends for a file, and what type a local file really is by its contents:

curl -sI https://example.com/file.py | grep -i '^content-type:'
file --mime-type file.py

Frequently asked questions

What is the MIME type for .py files?

text/x-python.

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

Content-Type: text/x-python; charset=utf-8. As a text format, include the charset so browsers don't guess the encoding. It compresses well, so let the server apply gzip or Brotli.

Related types

.sh .txt .json all MIME types →

Headers that go with it: Content-Type · Content-Disposition · X-Content-Type-Options