Uploading files

To bring in a folder once, such as old tax returns or a project’s papers, upload it in the browser.

Uploading a folder

1. Open Settings → Libraries.
2. Press Upload a folder and choose it, or drop the folder on the section.
3. Check the name it will have in your archive, such as upload-tax-returns, and change it if you like.
4. The upload starts, with a progress bar and Cancel.

Keep the page open while it runs; it warns you before you leave. If an upload is interrupted, upload the same folder again and it carries on.

Uploading it again

Uploading the same folder again updates it, as a sync does:

• new and changed files are sent;
• files no longer in the folder are removed from your archive. If that would remove more than 20 documents and more than a quarter of the folder, it asks first.

To keep a folder in sync as you change it, use Archivist Sync instead.

Which files

Converted to text	Left out, and listed as skipped
Markdown and plain text, kept as they are	images
PDF, using its text layer	.doc, .rtf, .pages and .pptx
Word .docx and OpenDocument .odt	anything else
Spreadsheets: .xlsx, .xls, .ods, .csv and .numbers
HTML and XML

Each file must be 10 MB or less. Hidden files and folders are left out. After the upload, a summary lists what was skipped and why.

What’s kept

A converted file isn’t kept. The archive keeps only the text made from it, so a library costs about as much storage as its text. The reader says “Converted from a PDF; the original file isn’t kept”, and Open the converted text shows it.

A scanned PDF with no text layer converts to little or nothing. It’s kept, and the reader says “No text was found in it, so it isn’t in search.” Very large spreadsheets are cut to their first 500,000 characters, and the reader says so.