How to open .3GP files (old mobile phone videos) on Android, Windows and Linux

Clearing out an old memory card, a backup of a feature phone, or a decade-old chat export, you find a pile of .3GP files. They’re the videos people recorded on mobile phones in the 2000s: birthday parties, first steps, gigs filmed from the back of the room. Today’s apps often refuse them, or play the picture in silence.

They’re still readable. Folders’ video player, built on mpv, opens 3GP and 3G2 files for free on Android, Windows and Linux. One thing to know up front: how a clip’s sound was recorded decides which player can play it, and this guide explains how to tell.

What is a .3GP file?

3GP is a video format defined by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), the industry group behind the GSM and 3G mobile standards. It was designed for the phones and networks of the time: small screens, little storage and slow, expensive data. 3G2 is its sibling from 3GPP2, the group that covered CDMA networks, used by some carriers in the United States and Asia.

Both use the same ISO media file structure as MP4, but with a short list of codecs:

	3GP	3G2
Made by	3GPP (GSM and UMTS phones)	3GPP2 (CDMA phones)
Video	H.263, MPEG-4 Part 2, H.264	The same
Sound	AMR-NB, AMR-WB or AAC	The same, plus EVRC or QCELP on some phones
Typical picture size	176×144 or 320×240 pixels	The same

You’ll find them from feature phones by Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Motorola and Samsung, early smartphones, and video messages sent by MMS. AMR is a speech codec built for phone calls, and many early phones used it for video sound too; later phones mostly switched to AAC. Some voice recorder apps also saved sound-only recordings as .3gp.

How to open a .3GP file with Folders

On Android

1. Install Folders from the download page and allow it to access your files.
2. Copy the old videos onto your phone, or put the old microSD card in if your phone takes one.
3. Browse to them in Folders. Old phones often used folders called Videos, My Videos or DCIM.
4. Tap a 3GP or 3G2 file to play it.
5. From a chat export or email, use Open with → Folders.

On Windows and Linux

1. Install Folders and browse to the files.
2. Double-click one to start playing.
3. Windows users can also right-click a 3GP in File Explorer and pick Open with → Folders.

What you can do with it in Folders

• Watch the clip. H.263, MPEG-4 and H.264 pictures all play, and AAC sound plays with them.
• Work through a whole archive. The Video player library in the Toolbox groups videos by folder and counts the ones you haven’t watched.
• Zoom in. Pinch to zoom and move the picture on a phone, or use Ctrl + mouse wheel on a computer. Keep expectations modest: a 176×144 video gets bigger, not sharper.
• Fix sync. If the sound drifts from the picture, adjust the audio delay.
• Change speed, to slow a moment down or skim through long recordings.
• Resume where you left off, and watch in picture in picture on Android.

The limit: Folders’ video player doesn’t include an AMR decoder on Android and Windows, so clips with AMR sound play silently there. Folders also doesn’t convert, enhance or edit videos.

Other ways to open .3GP files

• VLC: free on Windows, Linux and Android, and plays AMR sound. The best choice for clips that are silent elsewhere.
• Your Android phone’s gallery: many still play 3GP, sometimes including AMR sound.
• Windows’ Media Player: plays some 3GP files, though not always with sound.

Problems opening a .3GP file?

• Picture but no sound. The sound is almost certainly AMR. Play the clip in VLC, or convert it once with HandBrake or ffmpeg so the sound becomes AAC, which plays everywhere.
• Black screen with sound. The file may be a voice recording with no video at all. That’s normal for 3GP files from sound recorder apps.
• The file won’t open. If the phone ran out of storage or battery mid-recording, the file’s index may never have been written, the same problem that affects unfinished MP4s. Repair tools such as untrunc can sometimes rebuild it using a healthy clip from the same phone.
• No extension, or the wrong one. Videos saved from MMS sometimes lose their extension. Open the file in Folders’ hex viewer: a 3GP shows the letters ftyp followed by 3gp near the very start (3g2 for 3G2). Rename it with the right extension.

Questions people ask

Can I still play 3GP files on a modern phone? Yes. Folders plays them on Android 7.0 and newer; clips with AMR sound play silently in it, so use VLC or your gallery app for those.

How do I convert 3GP to MP4? Use HandBrake or ffmpeg, both free. Folders doesn’t convert video. Converting won’t add detail, but MP4 with AAC sound is easier to play, share and edit.

3GP vs 3G2: what’s the difference? They’re siblings: 3GP from the GSM world, 3G2 from CDMA networks. Both are small, MP4-like files from phones of the 3G era.

Why are my 3GP videos so blurry? They were recorded at very low resolutions to fit the phones of the time. No player can restore detail that was never captured.

Old voice notes in .amr? See how to open WMA and AMR files, or browse all 382 file types Folders opens.