RSS enclosure

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RSS enclosures are a way of attaching multimedia content to RSS feeds with the purpose of allowing that content to be prefetched.^[1] Enclosures provide the URL of a file associated with an entry, such as an MP3 file to a music recommendation or a photo to a diary entry. Unlike e-mail attachments, enclosures are merely hyperlinks to files. The actual file data is not embedded into the feed (unless a data URL is used). Support and implementation among aggregators varies: if the software understands the specified file format, it may automatically download and display the content, otherwise provide a link to it or silently ignore it.

The addition of enclosures to RSS, as first implemented by Dave Winer in late 2000 [1], was an important prerequisite for the emergence of podcasting, perhaps the most common use of the feature as of 2012^[update]. In podcasts and related technologies enclosures are not merely attachments to entries, but provide the main content of a feed.