Summary
- Google is adding file analysis feature to Gemini’s free tier, previously exclusive to the paid version.
- You can upload files and ask the chatbot to summarize content or provide insights on documents.
- Supported file types include docs, PDFs, spreadsheets and code files.
Google is enhancing Gemini‘s free tier by adding support for file analysis, a feature previously exclusive to the paid Gemini Advanced subscription. With this change, you can now upload files to Gemini and ask the chatbot to summarize their contents or ask questions about the document.
Google is currently in the process of rolling out file upload support to Gemini’s free tier on the web and mobile (via Reddit, GAppsLekas). So, the feature could take a while to show up for your account. Once available, you should see a tooltip informing you about the change. Tapping the + icon will then show the Files and Drive option alongside the previous Camera and Gallery options.
Apart from manually uploading a file, you can import a document from Google Drive from the web and the Android app — the option is not available on the iOS app.
As for supported file types, Gemini accepts documents created in Microsoft Word or Google Drive, plain text files, PDFs, RTF, CSV, XLS, and Google Sheets spreadsheets. The AI chatbot also supports C, CPP, JAVA, PHP, SQL, and HTML code files. If you upload a spreadsheet, Gemini on the web can help create charts based on its data. The full list of supported file types can be found here.
After uploading a document or file, you can ask Gemini to summarize its content or ask for an analysis and get actionable insights. The former is useful when reviewing large PDFs or documents quickly.
Gemini’s free tier finally catches up to ChatGPT with this change
If the file upload restrictions are the same as on Gemini’s Advanced plan, you can only upload up to 10 files at once, with each being up to 100MB in size. Gemini Advanced supports 1 million tokens, but the free tier will likely have a smaller token window.
Do note that Gemini currently does not support uploading a file and image with the same prompt.
Google has taken a long time to bring file upload and analysis to Gemini’s free tier. OpenAI rolled out a similar option to ChatGPT’s non-paying users in May 2024. This change will make Gemini more attractive to non-paying customers and bridge the gap with its closest competitor.
