Google Gemini can now analyze and summarize documents for free — here's how

Last year Gemini Advanced users gained a very useful ability. It became possible to upload files to the AI and have to do all kinds of analysis on them. That included offering insights, generating summaries, and creating charts should you need them. Well now this feature has rolled out to free users.

Google initially announced this free rollout last week, and has since confirmed that it’s available to all Gemini users — regardless of whether they pay $20 a month or not. And by “all Gemini users”, Google means all users. It doesn’t matter if you use Gemini on Android, iOS or through your web browser.

The announcement only mentions being able to upload Google Docs, PDFs and Word documents, though. As 9to5Google points out, Advanced users have also been able to upload spreadsheets and code files, which doesn’t seem to be an option for anyone on the free tier. Other features like Deep Research, custom Gems, Saved Info, and Recall are also reserved for paying Gemini subscribers.

All you need to do to upload a file is to start asking Gemini a question and tap the big Plus sign at the side. This will give you some extra options including “Files” and “Drive.” Both options give you the ability to upload up to 10 different supported documents at a time, either from local storage or from Google Drive. However free users also get daily caps, which is another thing Advanced subscribers don’t need to worry about.

Once Gemini has those files uploaded, you can start asking questions about their contents. Nice and simple really, and if you’re the kind of person that struggles reading large blocks of text it could prove very useful. At the very least, it is a lot more convenient than manually copying chunks of text into Gemini.

I don’t see the Files feature on my Pixel 9 Pro just yet, but the option is available when I head to gemini.google.com. So if it’s not showing up yet, you’ll have to be a little bit patient — or find an alternate way of accessing the uploads feature.

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