Chat uploads

Chat uploads lists every file people have attached while talking to an expert, across your whole workspace. Use it to see what is taking up storage, who put it there and which conversation it belongs to, and to delete files you do not want to keep.

Open it from Knowledge Base under YOUR EXPERT, then choose Chat uploads. You need the Manage documents permission, which owners and admins have by default (see Account types).

What a chat upload is

In the chat, a person opens the Tools menu next to the message box and chooses Add files or photos. They can also paste a file into the message box, or drag a file from their computer and drop it on the box. The expert can then read that file and answer questions about it in that conversation. A file can be sent with no text at all.

These files are not part of your knowledge base. They do not appear on the Documents page, and other conversations do not draw on them. They do use the same storage allowance as your documents, which is why they have a page of their own. The storage card at the top shows the split between Documents and Chat attachments.

For each question the expert looks at up to the three most recent images in the conversation. If it could not read an image, a note under the answer says The expert could not read and names the file. The person can then attach it again or describe it in words.

The rules are the same as for documents. The accepted file types are the same, each file can be up to 50 MB, and an upload that would take you past your storage limit is refused. Storage limits are on the Plans page.

Reading the table

Click a column heading to sort by it. The list starts with the largest files, which is the quickest way to find what is using your space. Clicking the same heading again reverses the order. The table shows 50 files per page, with the count and the page buttons below it.

Opening a conversation in History needs the Read conversations permission as well. See History.

Deleting a file

Click Delete on the row and confirm. The conversation keeps its messages, but the expert can no longer read that file. This cannot be undone, and the space is freed straight away.

People can do the same for their own files under Settings, then Data controls, in the Your uploads list. They can delete one file or use Delete all.

Each deletion is recorded in Audit logs as a chat attachment deleted by an admin, so there is always an answer to who removed a colleague's file.

What gets removed on its own

• A file that was attached but never sent is removed after about 24 hours.
• When a person deletes or clears a conversation with one of your experts, the conversation is archived, not erased. It leaves their list but stays in History, and its files stay with it. Only a personal chat that was never with an expert loses its files straight away.
• When a conversation is removed because it is older than your plan's history window, its files go too. That is 30 days on Business and 365 days on Professional. See History for the windows.

So clearing a chat does not free storage straight away. To free space sooner, delete the file itself, from this page or from Your uploads in the person's Settings.

Turning uploads off for an expert

Each expert has two switches, both on by default. Open the expert, go to Settings and look for Accept image uploads and Accept document uploads.

• Accept image uploads lets people attach images. Each image is read again by a vision model on every question that follows it, so this is the one to switch off if you want to keep usage down.
• Accept document uploads lets people attach PDFs, spreadsheets and other documents.

Turning a switch off stops new uploads of that kind. Conversations that already have such a file keep working.