Feeding ChatGPT a PDF file is super easy. You can do this in just a few easy steps. This detailed and comprehensive guide will demonstrate how to do it in simple steps, on both mobile and PC devices ????.
Let’s see some quick steps first before we dive into the details.
7 Quick Steps to Upload a PDF to ChatGPT
Open ChatGPT.
Log in.
Click the Plus or Image button on the right side of the chatbar.
Choose the file location option:
On a computer, click “Add photos & files” to select files from your computer or “Add from Google Drive” to add files from Google Drive.
On mobile, click the “Files” option to select from your device’s storage where you can access Google Drive or any other storage platform connected to your device.
Search for and Upload the PDF you’re looking for. Upon selecting, it will be uploaded as an attachment.
Write your prompt, explaining what you want the tool to do with the PDF. You may also send it without any prompt.
Send the message by clicking the send button or pressing enter on your keyboard to feed the PDF to the tool.
Below is a detailed guide on how to upload a PDF to ChatGPT with screenshots to help you understand the whole process. If you’re on mobile, skip to the steps for mobile.
The first thing you need to do is open ChatGPT: Just click the link here to visit the website, or you can search Google for “ChatGPT” and hit enter.
The first link that appears is what you want to click. It will take you to ChatGPT.
Once you click the first result, you'll see ChatGPT’s interface.
Before you can upload a PDF to ChatGPT, you need to log in to the website, because the Document feature requires you to log in before the tool can read and save your documents in its chats.
Tap the “Log in” button in the top-right corner of the interface to access the log-in screen.
If you don’t have an account yet, you can tap the “Sign up for free” button instead. But it doesn’t matter which button you tap; both the log-in and sign-up button take you to the same screen where you can either log in if you already have an account or sign up if you have yet to create one.
Once you log in, you’ll see the welcome screen where you can begin chatting with the chatbot.
You’ll notice a “➕” button on the left-side of the chatbar. Click this plus button to open the tools menu. In some cases, you might see an “Attach” button instead of the plus one. Both serve the same purpose.
ChatGPT allows you to upload files from two main sources: Your computer and Google Drive. Choose whichever place your PDF is stored on.
Choose Add photos & files to pick files from your computer.
Choose Add from Google Drive to pick files from your computer.
In case you only see the “Add photos & files” option and the “Add from Google Drive” option is missing, your Google Drive might not be connected to ChatGPT. In this scenario, click the “More” option with the three-dots icon and click “Connect Google Drive” from the more options.
You will be prompted to choose your Google account which you want to connect to. Once you do that, Google Drive will be connected to ChatGPT.
However, if your PDF is stored on your computer, you can skip this part and click “Add photos & files” to choose a file from your computer.
1. On Google Drive:
Suppose your PDF is stored on your Google Drive. Upon selecting Google Drive, you’ll see the following interface to locate your file:
Unfortunately, Google Drive does not show its proper interface but instead displays folders and files directly within the screen, which are either sorted by names or the date of their last modification.
So, the quickest method to find the PDF file is to type its name in the search bar. If you type the name correctly, the file will show up in the results. Upon clicking the file, it will be uploaded to ChatGPT as an attachment, which you can choose to remove before sending your message.
Say, you don’t remember the name of the PDF, which means you can’t search it through the search bar. But there are also too many files to go through manually, which might be sorted by the Last modified date. Worse if you haven’t modified the PDF in ages—it’ll be deep-buried somewhere down there. In this case, you can change the sorting of the files by clicking the sorting button located opposite the search bar, labeled “A Z.”
Sorting by Name will allow you to locate the PDF by its name via scrolling, if you remember the name’s first word or letters. You can also further sort the files by ascending or descending order by clicking the arrow next to the “Name” label.
2. On your PC:
However, if you choose to upload from your PC. You’ll be prompted to locate and select the file from your device. Simply find the file and click “Open” at the bottom of the screen to upload the attachment.
The attachment will be uploaded.
If your file fails to upload, it might exceed the size limit of 512MBs, be corrupt, or be of an unknown format. Make sure you’re uploading a working PDF within the size limits.
Be careful: Select and upload your PDF file carefully, because making an attachment counts as one successful upload of the document, even if you don’t let the tool read it. If you have limited uploads, as in the case of the free version of ChatGPT, making 3-4 attachments will put you out of quota, whether they’re processed by the tool or not. For example, if you mistakenly select and attach the wrong PDF, that’s one successful attachment minus from your total attachment quota. If you run out of quota, you’ll have to wait roughly 22 hours before you can upload a file again.
Now that your PDF is attached, you can write your prompt and explain to ChatGPT what you want it to do with the file.
Type your prompt into the chatbar. Simply explain what you want to do. You might want ChatGPT to: summarize the PDF, extract key points, explain the topic, or rephrase it.
By the way, if you don’t like the robotic rephrasing or summaries of ChatGPT, Rephraser.co can do it for you more naturally. Just upload your PDF and get its content rewritten in a human-written way.
The PDF might contain visual data instead, which the tool can process as well. In that case, describe your request as you need. Just try to be clear and detailed about what you’re trying to do with the file to avoid confusing the bot.
And be careful not to accidentally remove the attachment from the chatbar.
Once you’re done writing your prompt, click the “send” button or press Enter key to send it. This will feed the PDF to ChatGPT, which the tool will read and process to respond to your prompt.
Feeding a PDF to ChatGPT on mobile is roughly the same as on PC, with just a few differences.
Locate the ChatGPT app on your phone and open it. If you haven’t installed the app yet, you can find it on your device’s app store—Play Store (Android) or App Store (iOS).
You can also use the tool’s web version on the phone if you don’t want to install the app. Just Google “ChatGPT” or click the link, as explained above, and you’ll access it.
Once you’re in ChatGPT, continue to log in to the app, because uploading documents requires users to log in first.
Instead of a plus icon, on a mobile device, you’ll see an image icon on the left-side of the chatbar. Click the button to access the tools menu.
From the tools menu, tap the “Files” option, which will allow you to find and select the PDF. ChatGPT might ask you for permission to access local media files through a pop-up. Tap “Allow.”
If the permissions are not given, the tool will not be able to access your files. In that case, tap the “Files” option again to prompt the tool to ask for permission and then allow it. If that doesn’t work, you can go to the app’s settings on the phone and grant necessary permissions.
Once you access the media storage, look for your PDF file.
You may see the option to open your Google Drive (separated by different accounts currently logged in on the device). Select the right account and access Drive if the PDF is stored on it.
You can also use the search bar for a quick search, both on Drive and media storage.
Once you select the PDF, it will be uploaded as an attachment. So, be careful not to select the wrong file.
Once you’re done attaching the PDF, write the prompt you want to give the tool. Explain what you want to do with the PDF. You can also choose to send the PDF without a prompt first, which you can then send later on.
Click the send button, which appears with an arrow icon within a circle on the right-side of the chatbar. This will send your message to the bot and feed it the PDF, allowing it to read and process it. The tool will then be able to respond back based on your PDF and prompt.
Q1. What’s the maximum PDF size I can upload to ChatGPT?
The maximum file size you can upload to ChatGPT is 512 MBs, which is usually a lot for a text-based PDF file.
Q2. How many PDF files can I simultaneously upload to ChatGPT?
Free users can only upload one file at a time to ChatGPT. Uploading multiple files requires a premium subscription.
Q3. How many PDF files can I upload to ChatGPT?
With the free version, you can generally upload about 3 files to ChatGPT per day (and up to 80 with premium). Once you upload the maximum amount you’re allowed, the upload feature will go under a cooldown of approximately 22-24 hours (3 hours in the premium version). The exact number of files you can upload and the cooldown time after hitting the limit may vary depending on the traffic on the platform’s servers. So, you may only be able to upload two files within 24 hours as a free user.
Q4. Why won’t ChatGPT let me upload a file?
ChatGPT may not let you upload a file for several possibilities: (1) You may have hit your upload limit. (2) The file you’re trying to upload might exceed the tool’s maximum limit in size (512 MBs). (3) ChatGPT might be glitched—try clearing the app or browser’s cache to fix it.
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