SVG File (.SVG): XML Graphics, MIME & Safe Inspection

Check supported header evidence locally. Identification is not file validation or a malware scan.

Quick facts

Extension

.svg

Format

Scalable Vector Graphics

Category

image

MIME type

image/svg+xml

Standard / developer

W3C

Open with

ImageMagick identify

What is SVG?

SVG is a graphics language rather than a fixed raster pixel array. Because SVG can reference external resources and contain active content, viewing an untrusted file is a different security decision from reading inert text.

• Publish scalable icons, diagrams and illustrations that can be styled or embedded on the web

How to open SVG

SVG decoding can invoke delegates and process external references depending on the build and policy; use a restricted environment and review ImageMagick policy before inspecting untrusted content.

Technical details

Signature

No registered magic number

Encoding

XML encoding rules; UTF-8 is the default when no higher-level protocol or encoding declaration overrides it

Container

Not applicable

Compression

Base SVG is XML; a gzip-compressed SVG variant conventionally uses the .svgz extension

Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) 2

Things to check

• SVG may contain scripts or reference external resources, so untrusted files require a restricted inspection workflow.

Related formats

• Portable Network Graphics

  PNG stores raster pixels in a binary chunk format, while SVG describes vector and mixed graphics with XML.

• WebP Image

  WebP stores raster or animated image data in a RIFF container, while SVG is an XML graphics language that can include scripting and external references.

• Extensible Markup Language

  SVG is an XML language with SVG-specific elements and rendering semantics.