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Viewing Files

To increase security and reduce risk, Stanford is sunsetting its AFS service for web hosting and file storage. While you can still access AFS using your valid Stanford SUNetID, there are more secure web hosting platforms and document management solutions to which you should transition.

To reduce the use of AFS, UIT has taken these actions:

  • UIT no longer automatically provisions new faculty and staff members with AFS user volumes. New faculty or staff who need a personal user volume must submit a Help request.
    • This change does not impact existing AFS directories or the process for adding permissions for new individuals to those existing directories. Your existing space and everything in it remains intact.
    • This change does not impact auto-provisioning of new AFS user volumes for students and postdocs.

    See New Process for Provisioning AFS User Volumes for more information.

  • All user, dept, and group AFS volumes must be renewed annually or they will be locked, archived, and permanently deleted as detailed in the AFS Volume Expiration Policy.

Supported File Types

Only the following file types can be displayed in your web browser:

images
  • psd image
  • jpeg image
  • gif image
  • png image
video
  • mpeg video
  • QuickTime video
audio
  • mpeg audio
  • X-Shockwave-Flash
  • mp3 audio
  • aif audio
text
  • text files (e.g., html, plain text, c, php)

View a File in WebAFS

  1. Navigate to the file in the directory that you want to look at or read.
  2. To view the file in your web browser, click the Type icon (to the left of the file name) or the file name. The file will be displayed. You cannot make changes to the file while you are viewing it, but you can copy and paste from it.

      WebAFS directory

    Note: If you try to display a file that your web browser does not know how to display, such as a Microsoft Word file, the file will be downloaded according to your browser preferences.
  3. To download a copy of the file to your computer, click the AFS home directory download icon. Your web browser will open a dialog box giving you several options. Select the option that saves the file to your computer.
Last modified May 21, 2019