The MIME type application/zip is used to denote the presence of ZIP format files. This MIME type is categorized under "application". The alternative MIME types for this format and its variations are � application/x-zip, application/x-zip-compressed, application/octet-stream, application/x-compress, application/x-compressed and multipart/x-zip.

The ZIP file format has been designed for data archiving and compression. The files usually carry the extension ZIP. Since the ZIP format has been adopted in other software applications as well, certain files using the ZIP format may have different extensions. For example, the XPI extension used by the Firefox plugins that use the ZIP format and the Java JAR files that also use the ZIP format.

The ZIP file format supports the archiving and compressing of one single file and also of multiple files in multiple folders and subfolders. The compression is done through a compression algorithm. Although many algorithms have been used till date, the "Deflate" remains the most popular when it comes to ZIP files. The format was originally developed for a program called PKZIP and it has since been adopted by many other programs and major OS like Windows and Mac OS. It is currently a de facto format when it comes to archiving and compressing files.