How do I open a PKPass file on iPad?
September 28, 2021 9:26 AM Subscribe
I have an important travel document that I need to use next week. It is only available as a PKPass file. I need to open it on my iPad. Every guide I’ve found online tells me to open it in Apple Wallet, but it isn’t available for iPad, it seems. I have tried three different apps, but I can’t send the PKPass file from Files or Drive or Dropbox to any of them. How do I open a PKPass file on iPad?
Pkpass is the format for Apple Wallet passcodes on iOS, and should open natively.
Here's a demo/example pkpass file. If I click "view raw" or "download" on that page the pass opens in Apple Wallet (although there's nothing in the interfave to tell you that's the case) with an option to "add", after which the pass remains available in Apple Wallet.
I would check the example file and see if that works, it's possible your pkpass file is corrupt or has the wrong extension... It should "just work" in the iOS Mail or Files app.
Note, sometimes third party apps can't hand off files properly in iOS, sob if you're using the Gmail app (for example) you'll need to temporarily use iOS Mail instead.
posted by tiamat at 10:16 AM on September 28, 2021 [1 favorite]
Here's a demo/example pkpass file. If I click "view raw" or "download" on that page the pass opens in Apple Wallet (although there's nothing in the interfave to tell you that's the case) with an option to "add", after which the pass remains available in Apple Wallet.
I would check the example file and see if that works, it's possible your pkpass file is corrupt or has the wrong extension... It should "just work" in the iOS Mail or Files app.
Note, sometimes third party apps can't hand off files properly in iOS, sob if you're using the Gmail app (for example) you'll need to temporarily use iOS Mail instead.
posted by tiamat at 10:16 AM on September 28, 2021 [1 favorite]
Missed the edit window: Sorry I overlooked that wallet isn't supported on iPad. I'll keep looking.
posted by tiamat at 10:24 AM on September 28, 2021
posted by tiamat at 10:24 AM on September 28, 2021
I’m able to use Apple Wallet on both my iPad and iPhone. Here’s a link to the official Apple Wallet page on the Apple App Store. If for some reason Apple Wallet is no longer on your iPad, clicking the link will take you to App page to help you reinstall it.
I would try emailing yourself the PKPass file and opening the email in the Apple Mail app as suggested above.
posted by mundo at 10:28 AM on September 28, 2021
I would try emailing yourself the PKPass file and opening the email in the Apple Mail app as suggested above.
posted by mundo at 10:28 AM on September 28, 2021
Best answer: Plan B, have someone you trust, who has an iPhone, open the file and take a screenshot, then forward that to you.
posted by tiamat at 10:42 AM on September 28, 2021
posted by tiamat at 10:42 AM on September 28, 2021
As best I can tell, PKPass files really don't work on iPads, unless iOS 15 has brought changes.
If I visit the link tiamat provided on my iPad, which is a year and a half old and running iOS 14.8, both "View raw" and "Download" get me "Safari cannot download this file".
If I email the file to myself and click on it in Mail, it doesn't open. I get various options; the only one that looks useful is Save to Files.
If I do that, then go to the Files app and open it, then although the thumbnail in the app looks promising, all I see when I open it is a largely blank page with "Pass-Example-Generic" in the centre, followed by "Pass" in smaller print on the line below, and "17 KB" on the line below that.
For comparison, on my iPhone, I can open the file directly from Mail, so I know I should be seeing a company staff ID.
And the link to the official Apple Wallet page that mundo shared takes me to a page that says Apple Wallet is "not compatible with this device". I can add a card to the iPad to use it for Apple Pay, and the Settings category for that is "Wallet & Apple Pay", but there appears to be no Apple Wallet for the iPad.
Using the example file, the best I've managed is to open the Files app, press and hold on the pass, then choose Info. That brings up a small preview of the image, a couple of inches high, which *might* be big enough to serve the necessary purpose. Or you could screenshot it and zoom in, maybe? Wouldn't exactly be good quality, but might be good enough.
posted by ManyLeggedCreature at 10:47 AM on September 28, 2021 [2 favorites]
If I visit the link tiamat provided on my iPad, which is a year and a half old and running iOS 14.8, both "View raw" and "Download" get me "Safari cannot download this file".
If I email the file to myself and click on it in Mail, it doesn't open. I get various options; the only one that looks useful is Save to Files.
If I do that, then go to the Files app and open it, then although the thumbnail in the app looks promising, all I see when I open it is a largely blank page with "Pass-Example-Generic" in the centre, followed by "Pass" in smaller print on the line below, and "17 KB" on the line below that.
For comparison, on my iPhone, I can open the file directly from Mail, so I know I should be seeing a company staff ID.
And the link to the official Apple Wallet page that mundo shared takes me to a page that says Apple Wallet is "not compatible with this device". I can add a card to the iPad to use it for Apple Pay, and the Settings category for that is "Wallet & Apple Pay", but there appears to be no Apple Wallet for the iPad.
Using the example file, the best I've managed is to open the Files app, press and hold on the pass, then choose Info. That brings up a small preview of the image, a couple of inches high, which *might* be big enough to serve the necessary purpose. Or you could screenshot it and zoom in, maybe? Wouldn't exactly be good quality, but might be good enough.
posted by ManyLeggedCreature at 10:47 AM on September 28, 2021 [2 favorites]
Response by poster: flabdablet: It looks like PKPass files are just a specialized Zip file, so you could try using the Dropbox web interface to make a copy of the file, then rename the copy from blahblah.pkpass to blahblah.zip and see if you can find the document you need inside that (the Dropbox web interface lets you open Zip files as if they were folders).
Sadly, inside the PKPass there are the elements of the document, but disassembled. It seems that I need to be able to open the PKPass file natively for it to display everything correctly.
tiamat: Plan B, have someone you trust, who has an iPhone, open the file and take a screenshot, then forward that to you.
If nothing else works, I'll try that.
ManyLeggedCreature: Using the example file, the best I've managed is to open the Files app, press and hold on the pass, then choose Info. That brings up a small preview of the image, a couple of inches high, which *might* be big enough to serve the necessary purpose. Or you could screenshot it and zoom in, maybe? Wouldn't exactly be good quality, but might be good enough.
That's as far as I got too. Unfortunately, I need to be able to display it in full resolution.
posted by Kattullus at 11:09 AM on September 28, 2021
Sadly, inside the PKPass there are the elements of the document, but disassembled. It seems that I need to be able to open the PKPass file natively for it to display everything correctly.
tiamat: Plan B, have someone you trust, who has an iPhone, open the file and take a screenshot, then forward that to you.
If nothing else works, I'll try that.
ManyLeggedCreature: Using the example file, the best I've managed is to open the Files app, press and hold on the pass, then choose Info. That brings up a small preview of the image, a couple of inches high, which *might* be big enough to serve the necessary purpose. Or you could screenshot it and zoom in, maybe? Wouldn't exactly be good quality, but might be good enough.
That's as far as I got too. Unfortunately, I need to be able to display it in full resolution.
posted by Kattullus at 11:09 AM on September 28, 2021
Apologies, it would have helped if I actually tested the link on my iPad … Opening Settings on my iPad lists something called Apple Wallet & Pay but it appears in reality to only support some features of Apple Pay on the iPad. Sorry for the confusion.
posted by mundo at 11:39 AM on September 28, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by mundo at 11:39 AM on September 28, 2021 [1 favorite]
So given Apple's feelings about developers implementing features that Apple already includes (even if just somewhere else in the ecosystem) I don't think you're going to find an iPad app for this.
Do you have access to an Android phone or Windows PC? I was able to open the example pkpass file I linked above for free with PassWallet for Android, and with the demo version of WalletPass for Windows.
posted by tiamat at 3:11 PM on September 28, 2021 [1 favorite]
Do you have access to an Android phone or Windows PC? I was able to open the example pkpass file I linked above for free with PassWallet for Android, and with the demo version of WalletPass for Windows.
posted by tiamat at 3:11 PM on September 28, 2021 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: In the end I went with tiamat’s plan B, opened it on a borrowed iPhone and sent myself the screenshot of the document which I then saved to my iPad. Hopefully it’s enough.
posted by Kattullus at 4:23 AM on September 29, 2021
posted by Kattullus at 4:23 AM on September 29, 2021
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by flabdablet at 9:45 AM on September 28, 2021