Restricting File Types in Canvas Assignments

Do you want to restrict the types of files that students submit for an assignment? You can do this through the Restrict Upload File Types option in the assignment's settings.

These instructions are for an existing assignment in Canvas. If you need help creating an assignment, here's a helpful guide to creating Canvas assignments.

1. Make sure that the Submission Type for your Assignment is set to Online. Choosing Online from the drop-down menu will give you a series of options including File Uploads.

2. Check off File Uploads. A Restrict Upload File Types option appears.

3. Check off Restrict Upload File Types. A text entry field will appear where you can type in Allowed File Extensions:

   

4. Type in whatever file types you wish to ALLOW. Separate multiple extensions with a comma. Spaces, caps, and periods in between each extension are allowed. (So if you want only .doc and .pdf—you could type in: doc, pdf.)

If a student attempts to upload an incorrect file type, Canvas gives a warning that the specific file type they are attempting to upload is not allowed and will specify which file types are allowed.

Worried you don't know which file types to allow?

Here's a basic rundown of the most common word editor file types:

• .pdf - Portable Document Format. PDFs are great because they can be read across different operating systems, and the format will stay the same. PDFs are always a safe bet if you are sending a document to someone and you have no idea what kind of word processor they use.
• .doc - Microsoft Word Document. Docs are another safe bet for sharing a document across different platforms. This is the older more universal standard of Microsoft Word.
• .docx - Microsoft Open XML document. The recent default when saving a Word document, .docx is an updated version of the .doc file type. It is more versatile and can be read across different software platforms, not just Microsoft.
• .pages - Apple Pages document. Apple's answer to Word, Pages is a document editing software that is restricted to Mac operating systems only. Whereas you can use Word on both a Windows and an Apple computer, you cannot use Pages on Windows. We do not recommend using this file type.
• .txt - Plain text file. "Plain text" means there is little to no formatting possible within .txt files. They can be read almost universally by any software or operating system.
• .rtf - Rich Text Format. Think a step up from .txt with more formatting options. This file type is also widely accessible.
• .odt (.odf) - OpenDocument. This is an open source file format that requires advanced knowledge to use and is not particularly common. If you or your students are savvy enough to get a product like OpenOffice (think a free, slightly more basic Word), they will probably know not to try to upload .odt files. They should instead export the files out of OpenOffice as .doc, .docx, .pdf, etc.
• .html - HyperText Markup Language. This format is most commonly known as the backend of any website code. Students probably won't be ever submitting this kind of file unless you are specifically requiring them to create websites and want to view the code files themselves.