

# Binary media types for WebSocket APIs in API Gateway
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API Gateway WebSocket APIs don't currently support binary frames in incoming message payloads. If a client app sends a binary frame, API Gateway rejects it and disconnects the client with code 1003.

There is a workaround for this behavior. If the client sends a text-encoded binary data (e.g., base64) as a text frame, you can set the integration's `contentHandlingStrategy` property to `CONVERT_TO_BINARY` to convert the payload from base64-encoded string to binary. 

To return a route response for a binary payload in non-proxy integrations, you can set the integration response's `contentHandlingStrategy` property to `CONVERT_TO_TEXT` to convert the payload from binary to base64-encoded string.