Hitting ChatGPT's file upload limit? How to get a week of course files in anyway
You attach the week's slides and readings, and halfway through the chatbot tells you you've hit a limit. There's usually a way around it.
Which limit did you hit?
There's more than one, and the fix depends on which one you ran into:
- A cap on file uploads. Free plans only let you upload so many files per chat or per day, and one week of slides, readings and lab handouts can use that up fast.
- A cap on file size. A really big file, like a long scanned reading, can get refused on its own.
- A cap on messages. Free plans also limit how many messages you can send in a few hours. The error usually says when you can try again.
Look at the exact wording of the error. If it's about files or uploads, the fixes below should help. If it says you're out of messages, skip to the last section.
ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini all set different numbers and change them often, so check their help pages for the current limits.
Fix 1: turn many files into one
The simplest way around an upload cap is to upload fewer files. CourseFeed converts slides, PDFs, Word documents and spreadsheets to text and joins them into one Markdown document, with a # Source: heading for each file. Ten files become one .md file, so the whole week costs you one upload.
The conversion happens in your browser, so your course files aren't uploaded anywhere along the way.
Fix 2: paste instead of attaching
Text you paste into the message box usually doesn't count as an upload. For a lecture or two, press Copy for AI in CourseFeed and paste it straight in. For a whole week, attach the .md file instead, since very long pastes can get cut off. Paste or attach? shows how to check the chatbot got all of it.
Fix 3: send only what you'll study
Not every file has to go in. Leave out anything you won't study this week, and delete reference lists and appendices from the .md file before you send it. Shorter notes also leave the chatbot more room to keep track of the conversation.
Scans are the exception
Scanned readings and photos of slides have no text to convert, so they still have to go in as images or PDFs. If scans are eating your uploads, what to do with scanned PDFs has other ways to get the text out.
If you've run out of messages
CourseFeed can't do anything about a message limit. Only waiting it out, switching to another chatbot or paying for a plan gets you past it. What you can do is get more out of each message: send your notes once, ask for an outline first, then ask focused questions without re-sending the material. How to study a week of lectures with AI has prompts that work this way.