How to open .PLY files (3D scans and point clouds) on Android, Windows and Linux

You scanned a shoe with a phone app, ran a set of photos through photogrammetry software, or downloaded a research dataset, and ended up with a file called scan.ply. Double-click it on Windows and you may only get a box asking which app to use. On a phone, most file managers don’t know what it is.

A .ply file is a 3D model or a point cloud. Folders works as a free .ply file viewer on Android and Windows: it opens the file offline in its built-in 3D viewer, so you can turn the scan around, check the detail and see how many points or triangles it holds.

What is a .PLY file?

PLY stands for Polygon File Format, also known as the Stanford Triangle Format. It was designed at Stanford University in the 1990s to store data from 3D scanners, and it’s still the usual output of many scanning and photogrammetry tools.

A PLY file starts with a short text header whose first line is always the word ply. The header lists the “elements” in the file and their properties: usually vertices with x, y and z, often with red, green and blue, and optionally a list of faces. Then comes the data, as readable text or in compact binary.

That flexibility is why two PLY files can look completely different:

What the file holds	What you see
Vertices only	A point cloud: thousands or millions of dots
Vertices and faces	A solid surface (a mesh)
A colour on every vertex	The model or cloud in its scanned colours

You’ll meet PLY files from 3D scanners, tools like Meshroom and MeshLab, academic datasets (the well-known Stanford Bunny is a PLY), and 3D Gaussian splatting, a newer technique whose results are usually saved as .ply too.

How to open a .PLY file with Folders

On Android

1. Get Folders from the download page, install it and allow it to see your files when it asks.
2. Go to the folder with the scan (often Download), or type .ply into the search box.
3. Tap the file. A large scan shows a progress bar while it’s processed, then appears in the 3D viewer.

If the scan arrives in a chat or an email, tap it there and choose Open with → Folders.

On Windows, open the file from Folders, or right-click it in File Explorer and choose Open with → Folders; the installer adds Folders to that menu for .ply.

On Linux, Folders lists, moves and shares .ply files, but its 3D viewer needs a web view the Linux version doesn’t have yet. It offers Open with… instead, so you can hand the file to MeshLab or CloudCompare.

What you can do with it in Folders

• Mesh or points, decided for you. Folders reads the header: if the file declares faces, you get a shaded surface; if not, a point cloud.
• Scanned colours. Colours stored on the vertices show on both meshes and points.
• Point size. A slider makes a cloud’s dots bigger or smaller, which helps when a sparse scan looks like a faint haze.
• Details. Vertices, triangles or points, and the size in model units: a quick way to tell a light model from a raw scan with millions of triangles before you email it.
• Wireframe shows the triangles, so you can spot holes and very dense patches.
• Z axis is up. Scanning tools don’t agree on which way is up; if your scan lies on its side, flip this switch.
• Auto-rotate and Save screenshot for a turntable view and a picture to send.

Drag to turn, pinch or scroll to zoom, double-tap to frame it again. Folders is a viewer only: it doesn’t clean, simplify, measure or convert scans.

Other ways to open .PLY files

• MeshLab (free, Windows and Linux): the classic tool for cleaning, simplifying and converting scans.
• CloudCompare (free): built for point clouds, comparing scans and measuring.
• Blender (free): imports PLY for editing, sculpting or rendering.
• SuperSplat (free, in a web browser): the right tool for Gaussian splat PLY files.

Problems opening a .PLY file?

It shows dots, not a surface. The file has no faces: it’s a point cloud, normal for many scans. To make a solid model from it, use surface reconstruction, such as Screened Poisson in MeshLab.

A Gaussian splat looks like a pale blue cloud. Splat files keep their colour and shape in extra properties that ordinary 3D viewers don’t use, so Folders shows where each splat sits, not the photo-like result. Open it in a splat viewer instead.

The colours or texture are missing. Folders shows colours stored on the vertices. Some exporters put the colour in a separate texture image instead, which PLY viewers don’t normally apply. Export the scan as GLB, or as OBJ with its texture, and open that.

“The model is too large to open on this device.” Raw scans can hold tens of millions of points. Open the file on a computer, or simplify it first (MeshLab’s Quadric Edge Collapse Decimation is the usual choice). If it won’t open at all, the download may have stopped early: get it again.

Questions people ask

Can I open a PLY file on Android? Yes. Install Folders, tap the file, and it opens in the 3D viewer without an internet connection.

How do I convert PLY to STL for 3D printing? Folders doesn’t convert models. In MeshLab, choose File → Export Mesh As and pick STL. A point cloud needs a surface first, as described above.

PLY vs OBJ: what’s the difference? Both store meshes. OBJ is always text and usually keeps its colours in a separate material file with textures. PLY can be binary, can store a colour on every vertex, and can hold a bare point cloud, which is why scanners like it.

Is a .ply file safe? Yes. It’s only data, lists of numbers, with no scripts or macros inside.

More 3D guides: STL, OBJ and 3MF files and XYZ, PCD and other point clouds. Or browse all 382 file types Folders opens.