How to Fix ‘Sorry, This File Type Is Not Permitted for Security Reasons’ Error in WordPress

By default, you can install numerous file types to your website such as (.jpg, .jpeg, .png, .gif, .ico, .pdf, .doc, .odt and more). If you’re not uploading a file type that is within the default list, you can see the message.

There are two ways that you can fix the error: manually editing your wp-config.php file and by adding a free WordPress plugin to your website. Here are the two ways.

Within the wp-config.php file there is an ALLOW_UNFILTERED_UPLOADS option. Once enabled, you can upload any file type.

The first thing you need to do is to backup your WordPress website. This prevents mistakes from causing long term damage. To get started, connect to the WordPress website’s files through the FTP/SFTP. Under the root folder, you should find the wp-config.php.

Download the file to your local drive and then open it up with a text editor. Then add the following code snippet to the file above the ‘That’s all, stop editing! Happy blogging.’ line.

define('ALLOW_UNFILTERED_UPLOADS', true);

Save the changes to the wp-config.php file and then reupload the file to your online files.

Once you’ve done this, you can log out of your WordPress website and then log back in again. This should solve the problem.

The other option, for those who aren’t confident about editing the wp-config.php file, then you can use a free plugin. The plugin is WP Extra File Type plugin. Once, installed you can activate the update then go to ‘Settings’ and then ‘Extra File Types’ within the WordPress dashboard.

Within this screen, you can see a list of file types. You can just check the box next to the file types you want to add to the acceptable upload types. When you’ve selected the files you want to add, click on ‘Save Changes’.