Files and pictures

Sending pictures and documents both ways, and the files your agent makes.

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Send files to your agent, and get files back#

Send your agent photos, a video, a recording or a document in Archie, and it sends files it made back the same way.

Where it is: In the chat, with the Add button beside the message box, or by dropping files on the conversation.
How to use it: Press Add beside the message box, or drag files onto the conversation.
Send the message.
For a video or a recording, press Watch it or Listen to it on the card, or Skip.
Limits: Up to four pictures and one video or recording per message.
It asks before it watches a video or listens to a recording, and needs the Video Synthesizer add-on to do either.
A document you send is kept under General on the Knowledge tab until you remove it.
A recording sent through a chat app such as Telegram is heard as you talking and answered, with no notes made.

Everything you built goes in one file you save where you like, with no key or token in it. Archie can save one every week.

Where it is: On the Account page, under Backups: Save a backup, Save one every week, and Restore a backup.
How to use it: On the Account page, under Backups, press Save a backup and choose where it goes.
For one every week, press Choose a folder under Save one every week. Archie keeps the last three.
On another computer, sign in as you and use Restore a backup.
Limits: It is a plain file holding your chats, lists and documents, so keep it somewhere you would keep a tax return.
Keys and passwords stay out. On a new computer you get a list of what to connect again.
Downloaded tools, Mac permissions and a paired phone do not travel. Browser sign-ins and a Signal link are dropped on a different computer.
It opens only in Archie, on a computer signed in as you.

Your agent writes the actual file, such as a PDF, a Word file, a spreadsheet or a deck, and tells you where it put it.

Where it is: Files land in Downloads, in the Archie folder. The switch is on your agent's Setup tab, under What it can do.
How to use it: Ask your agent for a file, for example "Put that in a spreadsheet."
Find it in the chat, or in Downloads, inside the Archie folder.
Limits: It chooses the filename and never the folder. Everything goes to Downloads, in the Archie folder, on the computer running Archie.
Eleven kinds only: .pdf, .pptx, .xlsx, .csv, .docx, .md, .txt, .json, .html, .ics and .vcf. It never makes video.
One file is 5 MB at most.

Ask for a PDF and your agent lays it out on your computer, with headings, bullets, page breaks, and real bar, line or pie charts drawn in.

How to use it: Ask your agent for a PDF, for example "Make me a PDF of this month's expenses with a chart."
Limits: Charts are bars, a line or a pie, one set of numbers each. A bar chart always starts at zero.
A pie leaves out any slice at or below zero. With nothing above zero, it lists the numbers instead.
A Word file gets a chart's figures written out instead of the picture.

Ask for a deck and you get a real PowerPoint file you can open and change, with each heading starting a slide.

How to use it: Ask your agent for a deck, for example "Turn these notes into a five slide deck."
Limits: It lands in Downloads, in the Archie folder, and is 5 MB at most.

Give your agent a spreadsheet, Word file, deck or text file and ask for a change. Once you confirm, it sends back a changed copy in the same style.

How to use it: Send the file in the chat, or add it on your agent's Knowledge tab, under Documents.
Ask for the change, such as a new expense row or a different sentence. Ask how a total is worked out and it reads the formulas.
Press Confirm when it shows you the change.
Open the changed copy it sends back.
From your phone: Send the file on any chat app except Signal, which sends and receives no files.
Limits: It changes Archie's copy. The file where you keep it stays as it was.
A total that depends on a changed cell updates when the file is next opened in Excel. Until then your agent reads the old total.
A row goes at the end of a list. A slide's lines can change, and it cannot add a slide.
A PDF, an .xls or an .ods file is only read. Pages, Numbers, Keynote, an older .doc or .ppt, or a file with macros has to be exported first.

Your agent can make a picture and send it to you in the conversation, drawn with OpenAI or Google on your own account.

Where it is: If your AI account is with another company, add a Gemini key for pictures on your agent's Setup tab, under Pictures.
How to use it: Ask your agent for a picture, for example "Draw a logo idea for a lawn care business."
If your AI account is not OpenAI or Google, first add a Gemini key on your agent's Setup tab, under Pictures.
From your phone: It sends the picture in your chat app or Archie Mobile, and where a chat app cannot take a file, it saves it on the computer and says where.
Limits: With only a Claude account and no Gemini key for pictures, it cannot draw.
Each picture is billed by the AI company that draws it, never on our credits.
What you ask for goes to OpenAI or Google, whichever draws it.
No video or music.
Guide: Picking your AI account