Fix My Berry

What kinds of files will a BlackBerry open as email attachments? What kinds of audio and video files will a BlackBerry play?

Here’s an update from Research in Motion (RIM) on which file formats are supported by current BlackBerry Device Software and BlackBerry Internet Service. Below are supported file formats assuming you have: 

• BlackBerry Operating System 4.5 (see my article on upgrading to 4.5)
• BlackBerry Internet Service 2.5 (this applies to your wireless carrier, not your phone)

Email Attachments

You should be able to download, view, and edit the following types of attachments in their native file formats:

• .zip
• .txt
• .html
• Adobe Acrobat (.pdf)
• WordPerfect (.wpd)
• Microsoft Word (.doc) [Word 97-2003, not 2007 (.docx)*]
• Microsoft Excel (.xls) [Excel 97-2003, not 2007 (.xlsx)*]
• Microsoft PowerPoint (.ppt) [PowerPoint 97-2003, not 2007 (.pptx)*]
• Audio file formats (see next section)
• Video file formats (see next section)

* Ask your email senders who use Office 2007 to save their Office documents in Office 97-2003 format before attaching files to emails sent to your BlackBerry. 

Media Files

You generally should be able to play the following music and video file formats, although there are numerous parameters in the original conversion of the files that can be critical for playback compatibility and quality (see the original RIM knowledgebase article for details and exceptions):

Music

• ACC
• AMR
• MIDI
• .MP3
• .WAV
• .WMA 9 and 10

Video

• MPEG-4 (Part 2, Simple)
• MPEG-4 (Part 2, Advanced Simple)
• H.263 (Profile 0 and 3)
• WMV 9 (Simple)
• .avi
• .mov
• .3gp
• .mp4
• .m4v
• .mpg

Again, these are generally supported but with exceptions.

Reference

This information is based on RIM’s BlackBerry knowledge base articles KB15253 and KB05482. If you are converting music or video, you absolutely must read those articles.