RFC 3516 (rfc3516) - Page 1 of 8
IMAP4 Binary Content Extension
Alternative Format: Original Text Document
Network Working Group L. Nerenberg
Request for Comments: 3516 Orthanc Systems
Category: Standards Track April 2003
IMAP4 Binary Content Extension
Status of this Memo
This document specifies an Internet standards track protocol for the
Internet community, and requests discussion and suggestions for
improvements. Please refer to the current edition of the "Internet
Official Protocol Standards" (STD 1) for the standardization state
and status of this protocol. Distribution of this memo is unlimited.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2003). All Rights Reserved.
Abstract
This memo defines the Binary extension to the Internet Message Access
Protocol (IMAP4). It provides a mechanism for IMAP4 clients and
servers to exchange message body data without using a MIME content-
transfer-encoding.
1. Conventions Used in this Document
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", and "MAY"
in this document are to be interpreted as described in [KEYWORD].
The abbreviation "CTE" means content-transfer-encoding.
2. Introduction
The MIME extensions to Internet messaging allow for the transmission
of non-textual (binary) message content [MIME-IMB]. Since the
traditional transports for messaging are not always capable of
passing binary data transparently, MIME provides encoding schemes
that allow binary content to be transmitted over transports that are
not otherwise able to do so.
The overhead of MIME-encoding this content can be considerable in
some contexts (e.g., slow radio links, streaming multimedia).
Reducing the overhead associated with CTE schemes such as base64
Nerenberg Standards Track