The following guide and all the information you will find below are intended to help you solve the frequent Android “Unable to Find Application to Perform this Action” or “File not supported” error. The guide below should work successfully on all Android devices.
Sometimes Android device users may receive some alarming, or annoying error messages like “Unable to Find Application to Perform this Action” or “File not supported”. It is possible to fix this problem, however, first of all, you need to investigate the cause of the matter a little. Each of the possible solutions you will see below directly depends on the type of file you are attempting to access.
“File not supported” Android Fix
- The first step is to determine the location of the file or the program you need to access. For that purpose you will have to run the File Manager application.
- After opening the File Manager, locate the file/application you are attempting to access.
- Then, all you need to do is to hold down on the necessary item until you see a popping up page. It normally contains various options and possibilities. Here is an example:
- The next step is to select “Details“. This feature could have plenty of names on the different devices. After that you need to focus on the end of the name of the file. Usually there is a file extension after the file name. For instance, you may have a file named “jdgagd.rtf”, so the extension in this case is ‘rtf’.
- Of course there could be many other file extensions and names. The usual extensions contain three letters (sometimes more). This information is there to help you determine how to open a certain file.
- What you need to do after that is to copy this particular file’s extension. Then you have to paste it into the Google Play Store. If we take the .rtf extension as an example, then we are looking for a “rtf viewer” in the search box of the Play Store. In a different particular case you might be looking for something else, depending on the file format.
- Once the results of your search are generated, find a suitable one that could open your file. In the case with our example, this is the Microsoft Word app. Then all you have to do is to install the chosen program on your device. The file you want to open should now be opened easily with the help of the new app.
What if you cannot find a compatible app…
To yours and our disappointment as well, Android still does not support all file formats. For instance, the Windows program files with .exe extensions will not be opened on an Android device. It is possible NOT to be able to find a suitable app in the Play Store. In such a case, the file type is probably not supported on Android devices. If something like that is happening to you, what you need to do in order to access this particular file is to use another device.
If you are aware of a different successful solution to this Android issue, please let us know in the comments below. We will include it in our instructions and will assist even more people in dealing with this issue.