We Want to Hear From You! What Do You Want to See on the Community? Tell us here!
Forum Discussion
jdt34
4 years agoExplorer | Level 3
Can't open any files from my Android phone
I got a new Android phone about three weeks ago. When I accessed my Dropbox files, I was able to open some and not others. Now I am unable to open any files on the phone. Instead, I receive this message: "This file can't be previewed. To open this file, try a computer or another app." They will not download, export, or be made available offline. However, I can open all the same files on my desktop computer with no problems. I also tried connecting to my Android Dropbox to my desktop Dropbox and starred the item to see if that would help. Still no success. Why can't I open the files on my phone? Thank you for your help.
It seems like the device itself isn't allowing the Dropbox app to access the internet to download files.
There is a possibility that a proxy, VPN, firewall, security software, or even ISP/router issues could be restricting traffic to the following Dropbox domains.
I'd recommend checking all of these possibilities, and try connecting to a different WiFi network, or use cellular data, to see if there is any difference.
33 Replies
Replies have been turned off for this discussion
- Mark4 years ago
Super User II
Do you have an appropriate application on your phone to open them?
- jdt344 years agoExplorer | Level 3I have Microsoft Office on my phone, and it opens Word files outside of Dropbox just fine. My phone also opens PDFs outside of Dropbox with no problem. But within the Dropbox app, nothing opens.
- jdt344 years agoExplorer | Level 3One more thing. On the Dropbox website I can open the same files with my phone that won't open in the app.
- Megan4 years ago
Dropbox Community Moderator
Hi jdt34, let's see what we can find on this!
May I ask what OS and Dropbox app are installed on your device?
Can you check it and get back to me?
Thanks a lot! - jdt344 years agoExplorer | Level 3I have Android 12 and Dropbox app version 260.2.2.
- Megan4 years ago
Dropbox Community Moderator
Great. Thanks for the update, jdt34!
Can you also send us a screenshot of what you see when trying to preview your Microsoft files? - jdt344 years agoExplorer | Level 3I'm not sure how to include a screenshot in this post; if you explain how to do it, I'd be happy to. But regardless of the file I open, it tries for about a minute before I finally get the message "This file can't be previewed. To open this file, try a computer or another app."
- Megan4 years ago
Dropbox Community Moderator
You should be able to click the little camera icon on your response and attach your file there.
Does that happen with specific file types only?
Feel free to also have a look at this Help Center article. - jdt344 years agoExplorer | Level 3I'm sorry, but there is no camera icon on my respone. I can copy and paste any text, but I find no option to attach an image.
The only file types I have are docx, pdf, and xls. I can't open any of them with my phone. The file sizes range from 6-170 KB, which is well below the limits outlined in the article you recommended. - Jay4 years ago
Dropbox Community Moderator
Hi jdt34, could you try offlining the files first in the mobile app and then try to preview them?
About View, download, and export
Need support with viewing, downloading, and exporting files and folders from your Dropbox account? Find help from the Dropbox Community.
Need More Support
The Dropbox Community team is active from Monday to Friday. We try to respond to you as soon as we can, usually within 2 hours.
If you need more help you can view your support options (expected response time for an email or ticket is 24 hours), or contact us on X or Facebook.
For more info on available support options for your Dropbox plan, see this article.
If you found the answer to your question in this Community thread, please 'like' the post to say thanks and to let us know it was useful!