How can you read a files MIME-type in objective-c

I am interested in detecting the MIME-type for a file in the documents directory of my iPhone application. A search through the docs did not provide any answers.

It's a bit hacky, but it should work, don't know for sure because I'm just guessing at it

There are two options:

1. If you just need the MIME type, use the timeoutInterval: NSURLRequest.
2. If you want the data as well, you should use the commented out NSURLRequest.

Make sure to perform the request in a thread though, since it's synchronous.

NSString* filePath = [[NSBundle mainBundle] pathForResource:@"imagename" ofType:@"jpg"];
NSString* fullPath = [filePath stringByExpandingTildeInPath];
NSURL* fileUrl = [NSURL fileURLWithPath:fullPath];
//NSURLRequest* fileUrlRequest = [[NSURLRequest alloc] initWithURL:fileUrl];
NSURLRequest* fileUrlRequest = [[NSURLRequest alloc] initWithURL:fileUrl cachePolicy:NSURLCacheStorageNotAllowed timeoutInterval:.1];

NSError* error = nil;
NSURLResponse* response = nil;
NSData* fileData = [NSURLConnection sendSynchronousRequest:fileUrlRequest returningResponse:&response error:&error];

fileData; // Ignore this if you're using the timeoutInterval
          // request, since the data will be truncated.

NSString* mimeType = [response MIMEType];

[fileUrlRequest release];

Add MobileCoreServices framework.

Objective C:

#import <MobileCoreServices/MobileCoreServices.h>    
NSString *fileExtension = [myFileURL pathExtension];
NSString *UTI = (__bridge_transfer NSString *)UTTypeCreatePreferredIdentifierForTag(kUTTagClassFilenameExtension, (__bridge CFStringRef)fileExtension, NULL);
NSString *contentType = (__bridge_transfer NSString *)UTTypeCopyPreferredTagWithClass((__bridge CFStringRef)UTI, kUTTagClassMIMEType);

Swift:

import MobileCoreServices

func mimeType(fileExtension: String) -> String? {

    guard !fileExtension.isEmpty else { return nil }

    if let utiRef = UTTypeCreatePreferredIdentifierForTag(kUTTagClassFilenameExtension, fileExtension as CFString, nil) {
        let uti = utiRef.takeUnretainedValue()
        utiRef.release()

        if let mimeTypeRef = UTTypeCopyPreferredTagWithClass(UTI, kUTTagClassMIMEType) {
            let mimeType = MIMETypeRef.takeUnretainedValue()
            mimeTypeRef.release()
            return mimeType as String
        }
    }

    return nil
}

The accepted answer is problematic for large files, as others have mentioned. My app deals with video files, and loading an entire video file into memory is a good way to make iOS run out of memory. A better way to do this can be found here:

https://stackoverflow.com/a/5998683/1864774

Code from above link:

+ (NSString*) mimeTypeForFileAtPath: (NSString *) path {
  if (![[NSFileManager defaultManager] fileExistsAtPath:path]) {
    return nil;
  }
  // Borrowed from https://stackoverflow.com/questions/5996797/determine-mime-type-of-nsdata-loaded-from-a-file
  // itself, derived from  https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2439020/wheres-the-iphone-mime-type-database
  CFStringRef UTI = UTTypeCreatePreferredIdentifierForTag(kUTTagClassFilenameExtension, (CFStringRef)[path pathExtension], NULL);
  CFStringRef mimeType = UTTypeCopyPreferredTagWithClass (UTI, kUTTagClassMIMEType);
  CFRelease(UTI);
  if (!mimeType) {
    return @"application/octet-stream";
  }
  return [NSMakeCollectable((NSString *)mimeType) autorelease];
}

Prcela solution did not work in Swift 2. The following simplified function will return the mime-type for a given file extension in Swift 2:

import MobileCoreServices

func mimeTypeFromFileExtension(fileExtension: String) -> String? {
    guard let uti: CFString = UTTypeCreatePreferredIdentifierForTag(kUTTagClassFilenameExtension, fileExtension as NSString, nil)?.takeRetainedValue() else {
        return nil
    }

    guard let mimeType: CFString = UTTypeCopyPreferredTagWithClass(uti, kUTTagClassMIMEType)?.takeRetainedValue() else {
        return nil
    }

    return mimeType as String
}