video/quicktime

All MIME types
Video · Standards tree.mov .qt

Media type / video

video/quicktime

Apple QuickTime movies (.mov), the usual output of Apple cameras and editing suites.

Served inline: Browsers display this in the tab without granting it script access to the page. Safe to serve inline, provided the bytes really are what the header claims.

Browser behaviour

Renders inertly

Charset

no charset

Compression

Already compressed

Send it like this

Content-Type: video/quicktime

A binary payload has no character encoding. A charset parameter here is meaningless and occasionally confuses strict parsers.

Handling verdict

InlineRenders inertly

Browsers display this in the tab without granting it script access to the page. Safe to serve inline, provided the bytes really are what the header claims.

Charsetno charset

A binary payload has no character encoding. A charset parameter here is meaningless and occasionally confuses strict parsers.

CompressionAlready compressed

The format compresses internally. Another transport encoding costs CPU on both ends and typically changes the size by less than a percent — sometimes upward.

NameStandards tree

Registered with IANA through a public review process, so the name is stable and every implementation can rely on it meaning the same thing.

Anatomy of the name

RFC 6838

Top-level type

video

Video

Subtype

quicktime

Registered in the standards tree.

Structured syntax

none

No suffix, so the payload format is defined entirely by the subtype itself.

Parameters

none

Beyond the charset rule above, this type defines no parameters of its own.

What trips people up

1 note
  • Structurally close to MP4, so many .mov files play in browsers — but not reliably enough to depend on.

Response headers

Content-Type: video/quicktime
X-Content-Type-Options: nosniff
Content-Disposition: inline

nosniff stops the browser second-guessing the type you declared, which is what makes the rest of this reliable. Serving it inline is safe here because the browser renders it without granting it script access.

Server configuration

extension mapping

nginx

types {
    video/quicktime  mov qt;
}

Apache

AddType video/quicktime .mov .qt

Caddy

@type path *.mov *.qt
header @type Content-Type "video/quicktime"

Extensions and other spellings

with signature

File extensions

.mov.qt

File signature

?? ?? ?? ?? 66 74 79 70 71 74 20

Check these bytes rather than the client-supplied Content-Type when validating an upload. The header is a claim; the signature is evidence.

Related media types

8
Familyvideo
Treestandards
Suffix
Inlinepassive