1. An apparatus comprising: a user module that determines a recipient of a file from a predefined list of one or more intended recipients of the file; a system module that determines a configuration of the recipient's system; and an action module that performs one or more compatibility actions associated with the file in response to determining that the file is not compatible with the recipient's system configuration, a compatibility action comprising an action related to usability of the file on the recipient's system, the compatibility action performed on the sender's system prior to the sender distributing the file to the recipient, the compatibility action comprising presenting a notification to the sender that the file is not compatible with the recipient's system configuration, wherein at least a portion of said modules comprise one or more of hardware circuits, programmable hardware devices, and executable code, the executable code stored on one or more computer readable storage media.