docs: document removed options for res.sendFile() and express.static() in Express 5 migration guide by 22BRS1317 · Pull Request #2211 · expressjs/expressjs.com

22BRS1317 · 2026-03-18T16:15:59Z

Description

Changes made

en/guide/migrating-5.md

Added new section documenting removed options for res.sendFile()
and express.static():
- hidden → use dotfiles option instead
- from → use root option instead
Added TOC entry linking to the new section

Motivation

Developers upgrading from Express 4 to Express 5 who used the hidden
or from options in res.sendFile() or express.static() would
encounter silent breakage with no guidance in the migration guide.
This PR documents those removed options so users know what to replace
them with.

Note

Previous PR #2209 was closed due to including internal send package
methods that were not part of the public Express API. This PR contains
only the user-facing option changes.

netlify · 2026-03-18T16:16:06Z

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krzysdz

It should be also mentioned for res.sendFile() that the default for dotfiles changed to "ignore". I think it could be merged with the "express.static dotfiles" section.

There's also the switch to mime-types (pillarjs/send#192), which affects res.sendFile() and express.static, but is mentioned (twice) in sections about res.sendfile() (lowercase f) and express.static.mime, so there's a (small) chance someone could miss it when looking only at the ToC. I'm not sure if this is something that really needs changing, but I'll leave it here for reviewers to decide.

By the way you don't have to close a PR and open a new one after pushing new commits. You could have kept #2209 and it would show the new changes automatically after updating source branch.

bjohansebas · 2026-03-22T16:20:41Z

Aside from @krzysdz’s comments, this needs to be released for the new documentation. Since I don’t have time to do documentation backports, could you update the reference to the new redesign branch in this same PR? Otherwise, I’ll do it when I start modifying the documentation.

22BRS1317 · 2026-03-22T16:50:36Z

Hi! I've addressed all the feedback:

Removed the internal send.* methods section
Combined res.sendFile() and express.static() dotfiles
into a single section, explicitly mentioning the new default
value of "ignore"
Consolidated the duplicate MIME type documentation from
res.sendfile() and express.static.mime sections into one
dedicated section with updated TOC entry
Updated _includes/github-edit-btn.html to point to the
redesign branch as requested

Please let me know if any further changes are needed. Thank you!

krzysdz · 2026-03-22T19:02:23Z

en/guide/migrating-5.md

+- HTML files (.html): now "text/html; charset=utf-8" instead of just "text/html"
+- XML files (.xml): now "application/xml" instead of "text/xml"
+- Font files (.woff): now "font/woff" instead of "application/font-woff"
+- SVG files (.svg): now "image/svg+xml" instead of "application/svg+xml"


Did this really change? I looked at mime@1.6.0 types database and I see image/svg+xml as the type for .svg and .svgz extensions.

Now I see that the duplicate sections weren't identical and one of them mentioned SVG. It turns out #1903 was vibecoded and is AI slop. Almost everything in this section is incorrect. Of all listed extensions only one has a different mime type - .js changed from application/javascript to text/javascript. HTML, CSS, JS and JSON also always had charset specified in Content-Type, so this didn't change either.

krzysdz · 2026-03-22T19:07:30Z

_includes/github-edit-btn.html

+            {{ site.github.repository_url }}/tree/redesign/_includes/api/en/{{page.version}}
          {% else %}
-            {{ site.github.repository_url }}/edit/gh-pages/{{ page.path }}
+            {{ site.github.repository_url }}/edit/redesign/{{ page.path }}


I think @bjohansebas meant changing the PR base branch to redesign, not changing the edit button URL.

Thank you for the review!

PR base branch — I have changed the base branch of this PR
from gh-pages to redesign as requested.

SVG MIME type — After checking the Express 4 source code,
application/svg+xml was indeed the type used in Express 4,
so the change to image/svg+xml in Express 5 is accurate and
I have kept it in the documentation.

Edit button — Reverted _includes/github-edit-btn.html
back to gh-pages since the redesign branch is now the base
of the PR itself.

Please let me know if any further changes are needed. Thank you!

Yep, that’s what I meant.

I have done those changes

PR base branch — I have changed the base branch of this PR
from gh-pages to redesign as requested.

You did not, but @bjohansebas did that for you 30 min ago. You'll need to rebase your branch on redesign (git rebase redesign).

SVG MIME type — After checking the Express 4 source code,
application/svg+xml was indeed the type used in Express 4,
so the change to image/svg+xml in Express 5 is accurate and
I have kept it in the documentation.

Please don't blindly trust LLMs. This is not something done by Express directly, but mime (Express 4) or mime-types (and mime-db) (Express 5). I sent you a direct link to the mime type and file extension mapping from mime@1.6.0, where you can find what type is used for .svg in Express 4. You could also run a simple server to verify that Express 4 did not use application/svg+xml, but something else.

Thank you for the feedback and sorry for the incorrect SVG claim.
I verified using mime@1.6.0 directly:

node -e "const mime = require('mime'); console.log(mime.lookup('svg'));"
// output: image/svg+xml

This confirms SVG already returned "image/svg+xml" in Express 4 so
it was not a change. I have removed that line.

I have also rebased the branch on upstream/redesign — the PR now
shows 1 file changed with only the relevant changes to
legacy/en/guide/migrating-5.md.

Sorry for the confusion earlier and thank you for your patience!

bjohansebas · 2026-03-22T21:50:59Z

Note that I haven’t reviewed what this PR does, and I won’t do so until next weekend when I go on vacation to take the final steps of the redesign

bjohansebas · 2026-03-22T21:53:55Z

@22BRS1317 now do the rebase

22BRS1317 requested a review from a team as a code owner March 18, 2026 16:16

krzysdz reviewed Mar 19, 2026

View reviewed changes

krzysdz reviewed Mar 22, 2026

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bjohansebas changed the base branch from gh-pages to redesign March 22, 2026 21:53

docs: document removed options for res.sendFile() and express.static()

2663ffd

22BRS1317 force-pushed the gh-pages branch from 14b4860 to 2663ffd Compare March 22, 2026 22:43

docs: remove incorrect SVG MIME type change

ae918dc

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22BRS1317 commented Mar 18, 2026

Description

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Motivation

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bjohansebas commented Mar 22, 2026

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