Perplexity AI File Uploading and Reading: formats, limits, and enterprise options

Perplexity AI extends its search and reasoning features by allowing users to upload and analyze files directly in the chat interface, within Enterprise accounts, and through its API. The platform supports a wide range of document, spreadsheet, presentation, image, audio, and video formats, but enforces specific size and count limits that vary depending on the environment. In 2025, Perplexity clarified how uploads are handled across personal plans, enterprise subscriptions, and developer APIs, giving a clearer picture of what users can expect when using files as part of their workflows.

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How file uploading works in the Perplexity app.

In the consumer-facing app and web version, users can attach files directly to prompts. Perplexity then parses the document and answers questions based on the uploaded material. A query may combine multiple files with web-grounded search results, or it may use the “Writing” focus to limit answers strictly to the uploaded files without web sources.

The app currently supports attaching up to 10 files at once, with a 40 MB size cap per file. This limit applies across formats including PDFs, Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, PowerPoint slides, and common text files. Images, audio, and video can also be uploaded, but large media files are constrained by the same size ceiling.

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Supported formats across documents, images, and media.

Perplexity accepts a wide range of file types, making it adaptable for both casual and professional use.

• Documents: PDF, DOC/DOCX, TXT, RTF, CSV, XLSX, PPTX.

• Google formats: Docs, Sheets, and Slides through connected accounts.

• Images: JPEG, PNG, HEIF, and PDF images.

• Audio: MP3, WAV, AIFF, OGG, FLAC.

• Video: MP4, MOV, AVI, WebM, and other common formats.

Documents are fully indexed for structure and text, spreadsheets are parsed for tabular data, and audio files are transcribed for search and question-answering. Video files are supported, but current analysis is limited to transcripts and captions rather than visual scene recognition.

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Limits for enterprise and organizational accounts.

Enterprise accounts provide higher operational limits and repository functions that allow teams to scale file usage.

• Per-file limit: 50 MB.

• Attachment limit: 500 files per day.

• Repository capacity: 5,000 files for Enterprise Pro and 10,000 files for Enterprise Max.

• Internal Knowledge and Spaces: Designed for structured repositories, though images are not indexed in these environments.

These limits apply to connectors as well, which allow direct integration with Google Drive and other storage sources. This ensures that organizational data can be accessed without repeated manual uploads.

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Table — File limits by plan and environment.

Environment	Per-file size	File count	Repository limit	Notes
Consumer app/web	40 MB	10 files per upload	N/A	For personal use; all common document formats supported
Enterprise Pro	50 MB	500 files per day	5,000 files	Higher capacity for team workflows
Enterprise Max	50 MB	500 files per day	10,000 files	Expanded repository for large organizations
API (Sonar models)	50 MB	Per request limit only	N/A	Accepts PDF, DOC, DOCX, TXT, RTF, via URL or base64

This table highlights the scaling of limits from free and personal accounts up to Enterprise Max deployments.

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How file reading and analysis works in practice.

Once uploaded, files are processed for their core content. Perplexity can extract text, summarize, and answer questions while providing citations when web sources are combined. With spreadsheets, users can request summaries, calculations, and structured breakdowns. With audio and video, transcription enables content search and targeted Q&A, although visual indexing is not yet part of the processing pipeline.

Using the Writing focus ensures that answers are based only on the uploaded files, while the Search focus combines file content with web results to generate richer responses with references. This dual mode allows users to decide whether the file should be treated as a standalone knowledge source or as supplemental context.

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Developer and API access to file analysis.

For developers, Perplexity offers file handling through the API with its Sonar models. Files can be uploaded as public URLs or as base64-encoded attachments, with a maximum size of 50 MB per file. Supported formats include PDF, DOC, DOCX, TXT, and RTF.

The API supports file-based Q&A, summaries, and extractions, but enforces the same context-window constraints as other Perplexity endpoints. While video analysis via API is listed on the roadmap, current processing remains limited to transcript-level ingestion.

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Table — Supported formats across environments.

Category	Formats supported
Documents	PDF, DOC/DOCX, TXT, RTF, CSV, XLSX, PPTX
Google	Docs, Sheets, Slides (via connectors)
Images	JPEG, PNG, HEIF, PDF images
Audio	MP3, WAV, AIFF, OGG, FLAC
Video	MP4, MOV, AVI, WebM

This table consolidates the formats that Perplexity can process across consumer, enterprise, and API use cases.

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Operational guidance for teams and enterprises.

For individual users, Perplexity’s 40 MB per-file limit and 10-file upload cap provide enough flexibility for research, reports, or class notes. For organizations, Enterprise Pro and Max subscriptions increase file capacity and provide structured repositories that scale to thousands of files, with connectors simplifying access to Google Drive and other sources. For developers, the API supports file ingestion directly in workflows, with 50 MB size caps and broad document compatibility.

The practical recommendation is to keep uploads within 40–50 MB, split large PDFs into chapters or sections, and leverage repositories or connectors for ongoing corpora. Teams should also use Writing focus when answers must remain file-bound and Search focus when additional grounding from the web is needed.

By combining multi-format support, scalable limits, and enterprise connectors, Perplexity has created a flexible file analysis ecosystem that integrates personal uploads, organizational knowledge bases, and developer pipelines into a single AI platform.

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