File Types Supported in iOS 16 Freeform

Apple’s Freeform app, introduced in iOS 16.2, functions as an infinite digital canvas designed for brainstorming, planning, and visual collaboration. This guide outlines the wide variety of file formats and media types you can drag, drop, and insert into an iOS 16 Freeform board, detailing how each asset behaves once placed on the canvas.

Documents and Office Files

Freeform natively supports most common document types, allowing you to drag them directly from the Files app onto your board. Once attached, documents generate interactive previews that can be viewed and annotated using Quick Look:

  • PDFs: Portable Document Format files (.pdf) can be viewed, resized, paged through, and marked up with drawing tools directly on the canvas.
  • Apple iWork Documents: Pages (.pages), Numbers (.numbers), and Keynote (.keynote) presentations.
  • Microsoft Office Files: Word (.docx, .doc), Excel (.xlsx, .xls), and PowerPoint (.pptx, .ppt) documents.
  • Plain and Rich Text: Plain text (.txt), Rich Text Format (.rtf), and Markdown files.

Image and Graphic Formats

You can drag images directly from the Photos app, Safari, or the Files app onto a board. Images can be cropped, masked, layered, locked, or duplicated:

  • Standard Raster Images: JPEG, JPG, and PNG formats.
  • Apple Media Formats: HEIC and HEIF files.
  • Animated Graphics: Animated GIFs, which play continuously on the board.
  • Other Image Types: TIFF, WebP, and vector graphics such as SVG.

Audio and Video Media

Media files can be embedded directly into the workspace and played inline without leaving the app:

  • Video Files: MP4, MOV, and M4V files. Video clips feature playback controls to pause, scrub, and toggle full-screen mode.
  • Audio Files: MP3, M4A, WAV, and AAC recordings. These appear as audio tiles with integrated playback controls, making them useful for voice memos and sound assets.

Freeform integrates with iOS system features to display rich metadata for external links:

  • Web URLs: Dragging a link from Safari or pasting a URL creates a rich link preview card featuring the webpage's title, thumbnail, and domain.
  • Apple Maps Locations: Dragging a location or address from Apple Maps places an interactive map pin card on the board.

Compressed Archives and Other File Formats

You can drag virtually any generic file, including ZIP archives (.zip), onto a Freeform board from the Files app. While unsupported or specialized proprietary formats may not render an active inline preview, Freeform stores them as tappable file icons. Tapping these attachments opens them via iOS Quick Look or presents the standard share sheet to export them to compatible applications.