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feklee's avatar
feklee
Helpful | Level 6
6 years ago

Viewing text file without extension in Android app?

I have thousands of text files with notes that I would like to be able to view on my Android phone. Most of them don't have an extension. Many of them are simply called README. As far as I understand...
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Walter's avatar
Walter
Icon for Dropbox Community Moderator rankDropbox Community Moderator
6 years ago

Hi feklee; how are you today?

 

It's true that the mobile app won't be able to preview a file without extension at this moment and while I won't be able to suggest a 3rd party app for this, I'll leave this thread open in the hopes that a similar minded user has more to offer. 

 

Also, note that we have a dedicated area if you'd like to share your ideas, feature requests and/or suggestions and you could post your ideas there so other users can chime in and upvote them as well to show their interest. 

 

In the meantime -and as you probably know- you can edit the files to append them with an extension our mobile app can handle and/or try a 3rd party app/service that was made for that specific reason, i.e. previewing extensionless text files. 

 

I know it's not the answer you were looking for, however, I hope it helps to some extent. 

  • feklee's avatar
    feklee
    Helpful | Level 6
    6 years ago

    Thanks for the suggestion! But I don't want to change the extension of files just to get around limitations in Dropbox. That would be a terrible idea as it would break many things. I understand that the Dropbox app is just a last resort if one doesn't have a PC around, so no surprise that it's missing important features.

     

    What feature does a text viewing app need to have so that it integrates with Dropbox? (technical explanation welcome, I'm a dev)

     

    The VIM clone I mentioned earlier must be DroidVim. It is the only 3rd party app so far that I can use to view text files from the Dropbox app, but it's cumbersome. I wonder what other text viewers are missing. They are not visible when selecting "Open with..." from within the Dropbox app.

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