#Documents — Receipts, Manuals & Files

Your paper trail, digitized and searchable. Never rummage through a drawer looking for a warranty again.

#What It Does

Documents in ambientChat are digital copies of the real-world paperwork that accumulates around your life — receipts, product manuals, warranties, certificates, contracts, and anything else worth keeping. When you upload a document, the AI reads it, extracts the important details, generates a summary, and tags it for easy searching later.

The magic is in the connections. A receipt doesn't just sit in a folder — it links to the inventory items it created. A warranty knows which product it belongs to. Your AI assistant can search across all your documents when you ask about purchases, coverage, or that thing you bought six months ago whose name you can't remember.

You can upload files you already have, not just photos: PDFs, Office files — Word (.docx), Excel (.xlsx), PowerPoint (.pptx) — and spreadsheets exported as CSV or TSV (.csv, .tsv). The text inside them is extracted so they're fully searchable and available to your AI assistant, exactly like the documents you can ask the AI to create for you (see Creating Documents). Uploading and generating produce the same kind of searchable document.

A CSV gets a little extra: the app reads the table, so opening one shows its columns and first rows as a proper table — you can see what's in a spreadsheet without downloading it — and tells you how many rows and columns it holds. Your AI assistant can answer questions about the contents. Very large CSVs are still stored whole and downloadable, but only the first portion is read into a conversation; the app says so rather than quietly answering from part of the file.

Text files you can edit. Notes (.md), plain text (.txt), and spreadsheets (.csv, .tsv) all open on the same editing screen. You read them the way they're meant to be read — a note renders as formatted text, a spreadsheet renders as a table — and the pencil switches to editing the file itself. See Editing a Document below.

#Document Types

The system recognizes and handles several document types, each with tailored AI extraction:

Type	What It Is	What AI Extracts
Receipt	Proof of purchase	Store name, items, prices, date, payment method, tax, subtotal, total
Manual	Product documentation	Product name, key instructions, specifications
Warranty	Coverage information	Product, coverage period, terms, provider
Certificate	Certifications, diplomas	Issuer, date, subject, validity
Contract	Agreements, terms of service	Parties, dates, key terms, obligations
Scan	General scanned documents	Text content, summary
Help Guide	Built-in guides (like this one)	Title, content, tags
Note	Your own written documents	Content, summary

#How to Use It

#iOS App

Uploading a document:

Open the Documents tab in My Things
Tap the Upload button (plus icon)
Choose your source:
- Camera — take a photo of a receipt, document, or label
- Photo Library — select an existing image
- File Browser — pick a PDF, an Office file (Word .docx, Excel .xlsx, PowerPoint .pptx), a .csv/.tsv spreadsheet, or an image from your device
The AI processes the document automatically — extracting text, generating a summary, and assigning tags
Your document appears in the current folder, ready to view

Viewing a document:

Tap any document to open it
Images display with pinch-to-zoom
PDFs open in a built-in viewer
Markdown files render with full formatting
The document detail screen shows the AI summary, extracted data, tags, and any linked inventory items

Linked items:

When a receipt or product scan creates inventory items, those items are linked back to the source document. You'll see a Linked Items section on the document detail screen. Tap any linked item to jump straight to it in your inventory.

#Web

Go to the Documents section
Click the Upload button
Select one or more files — images, PDFs, Office files (Word .docx, Excel .xlsx, PowerPoint .pptx), .csv/.tsv spreadsheets, and .md markdown files are all supported
Documents are processed and appear in the current folder
Use drag-and-drop to move documents between folders — just drag a document card onto a folder

Adding an image to Documents files it — it does not become inventory. Drop a photo into a Documents folder and you get one document, with its type, the date you added it, and the folder it went into. The AI still reads it, so it is searchable and you can ask about it — but it will not be broken up into inventory items. A photo of your lounge stays a photo of your lounge; if you want the things in it catalogued, use Scan. (The same goes for a receipt: dropped into Documents it becomes a receipt document you can search, not a shopping list of items.)

Or skip the button entirely — drag files straight in from your desktop. Where you drop decides where the file lands:

Drop it on…	It uploads to…
Anywhere in the documents area	The folder you're currently looking at
A folder card	That folder — you don't have to open it first
A folder name in the breadcrumb trail	That folder, however far back up you are

Drop several files at once and they upload together. If any of them can't be used, you get one message at the end saying which and why — the rest still upload.

#Via Chat

Your AI assistant can search and retrieve documents on your behalf. Try:

"Show me my receipts from Costco."
"Find my laptop warranty."
"What did I buy at Target last month?"
"Do I have a manual for my air fryer?"
"How much did I spend on groceries this week?"

You can also attach files directly in chat. Tap the attachment button, select a file, and choose which folder to save it to. The AI will process the document and include its contents in the conversation.

#Via Claude Desktop (MCP)

If you've connected ambientChat to Claude Desktop via MCP, you can access your documents with these tools:

list_documents — List documents, optionally filtered by format (mediaType, e.g. text/csv), type, category, and folder
get_document — Get full details — AI summary, linked items, metadata
search_documents — Keyword search across titles, summaries, and content
search_documents_semantic — AI-powered semantic search by meaning
update_document — Update a document's title, description, or tags
update_text_document — Replace the contents of a note, .txt, .csv or .tsv. Send the whole new text, not a patch. Refuses a spreadsheet that doesn't parse rather than saving a broken file
undo_text_update / redo_text_update — Step a text document back or forward through its edit history. For a spreadsheet this restores the previous file, exactly
read_document_rows — Page through a stored spreadsheet's rows without loading the whole file
upload_document — Upload a new document for AI processing
move_document — Move a document between folders
trash_document / restore_document — Soft delete and restore
regenerate_document_image — Generate a new AI illustration thumbnail

For the full tool reference, see MCP Tools — Complete Reference.

Example: Ask Claude Desktop "Search my ambientChat documents for appliance warranties" and it will use these tools to find and display them.

#Multi-Page Documents

A manual, warranty booklet, or contract is one document with many pages — not a pile of unrelated photos. Open any photo document and you'll see a PAGES strip:

Add pages — photograph the rest and add the shots. They become numbered pages of that one document, in the order you add them. Works on iOS (Take Photo / Choose from Library, multi-select) and in the web interface.
Tap a page to view it full size. The ✕ removes a bad shot and the rest renumber.
Ask about a page — "read page 11 of the drill manual". The AI can look at whichever pages you name, which matters for a long manual: without naming them it only ever sees the first few.
In chat — attach the photos and say "add these as pages of the drill manual".

The document's original photo stays as page 1, and a document always keeps at least one page — trash the whole document instead of emptying it.

Already uploaded a manual as separate photos? Turn on Select, tick the pages in the order you want them, and tap Combine. They become one multi-page document: the first one you selected keeps its title and stays where it is, the rest become its pages and go to Trash — so if you pick the wrong ones, nothing is lost. Any item they were attached to stays attached. Combine only appears for photo documents.

PDFs already paginate themselves, so they don't take photo pages — their page previews are rendered from the file and shown read-only. Only the first several pages get previews on very long PDFs; the AI still reads the whole document's text either way.

#File Size

Every document knows how big it is, and says so:

In the document's details — a Size row, next to its format and dates. On iOS, in the web interface, and on the page for a note or spreadsheet.
In your folders — the size sits on the end of each row's meta line, after the format and the date, in both List and Text list views. The Thumbnails view leaves it out on purpose: a tile is mostly picture and title, with little space for anything else.
As a sort — pick File size from the sort control to find the heavy things. Largest first by default; tap again for smallest first.

What the number means is "the file you'd get if you downloaded it". A photographed multi-page document counts all its pages, because each page is part of the document. A PDF counts the PDF, not the page previews we render from it. A note or a spreadsheet you typed counts its text.

A document with no size shown is one we couldn't measure — its file lives somewhere outside your library, or it has gone missing. Those sort to the bottom either way, so they never masquerade as the smallest thing you own.

Sizes appear on everything created from now on. Documents you already had get theirs when the one-off backfill runs — until then a few older ones may show no size and sort to the bottom.

#Tips & Tricks

Sort by file size to find what's eating your allowance. A handful of multi-megabyte scans usually outweigh hundreds of notes. Largest-first in a folder shows you which they are.
Scan receipts sooner rather than later. Thermal paper receipts fade over time, and once they're too faint, even AI can't read them. Snap a photo while the ink is still fresh and you'll have a permanent, searchable record.
The AI summary is often enough. You don't always need to open the full document. The summary on the document card captures the key details — store, total, date — so you can find what you need at a glance.
Use folders to stay organized. A few well-named folders (Receipts, Warranties, Medical, Home) go a long way. See the Folders guide for more on organization.

#Options

Setting	What It Does	Default
Auto-tag	AI automatically assigns tags to uploaded documents	On
Default folder	Where new documents are saved when no folder is selected	My Documents

#Editing a Document

Notes, plain text files and spreadsheets can be edited in place — you don't have to download, change, and re-upload.

How it works

Open the document. A note shows as formatted text; a .csv or .tsv shows as a table.
Press the pencil (top right).
Edit, then press Save. Cancel throws the edit away.

What you're editing, for a spreadsheet

You edit the file's real text — one row per line, values separated by commas (or tabs, for a .tsv). That's deliberate: it's the actual file, so nothing is lost in translation. Two things worth knowing:

A value containing a comma or a line break must be wrapped in double quotes — "Smith, John" is one value, Smith, John is two. The editor tells you if you leave a quote unclosed, and refuses to save rather than saving a broken file.
One row can span more than one line when a value contains a line break. So a 95-row spreadsheet may show more than 95 numbered lines. The count above the editor always tells you the real row and column totals.

Changed your mind? Ask your assistant to "undo that edit". For a spreadsheet this puts the previous file back exactly as it was — not an approximation of it. You can undo repeatedly, and redo if you undo too far.

When editing isn't offered

Very large files are read-only in the app, and the screen says so with the actual number — "This has 12,480 rows — too many to edit in the app. Download it to change it in a spreadsheet app." There's no greyed-out button to puzzle over: either the pencil is there, or there's a sentence explaining why it isn't. Other reasons you might see: the file is bigger than the app can safely edit, someone else is editing it right now, or its stored file is missing.

Everything else — PDFs, images, Office files (.docx/.xlsx/.pptx) — is not editable in the app. Download those, change them in the app that made them, and upload again. A .xlsx in particular can hold several sheets, and the editor is built around single-table files.

#Known Limitations

Maximum file size is 100 MB per upload. Large presentations and image-heavy documents are fine.
Very large PDFs (over ~15 MB) skip AI visual analysis. They still upload and become fully searchable — the text is extracted and summarized — they just don't get the vision-based content detection (receipt/manual/contract) that smaller PDFs get, which is what the AI matches against when you ask for "my warranties".
Photographed pages aren't text-searchable yet. Pages you add as photos can be looked at by the AI — ask for a page and it reads it — but their text isn't extracted into search the way a PDF's is. Searching for a phrase you know is on page 7 won't find it; asking the AI to read page 7 will.
Handwritten documents have lower AI accuracy. The AI does its best with handwriting, but typed or printed text is significantly more reliable. If the AI misreads something, you can edit the extracted text manually.
PDF text extraction depends on PDF quality. Scanned PDFs (essentially images) are processed through OCR, which works well but isn't perfect. Native-text PDFs extract cleanly.
Filter by format. Documents are sorted by what they're stored as — CSV, TSV, PDFs, Notes, Office, Images — and each card carries the same word as a badge, so the row you filter by and the label you read agree. A format only appears once you actually have a file of that kind. There's no "Receipts / Manuals / Warranties" row: what a document means is something the AI works out and searches on for you, not a shelf you have to file it on.
Turn a spreadsheet into inventory. Open a .csv or .tsv and tap Create items (the table-arrow button, top right on iOS and web). That hands the file to chat with the request already written — press send and the assistant shows you which column it thinks is the name, the brand, the price, and so on. Approve it and the rows become items. It remembers the layout, so the next export from the same source imports without asking again. Duplicates are skipped, and "undo that" puts the whole import in Trash in one go.
Spreadsheet size limit. CSV and TSV files are capped at 25 MB (other files at 100 MB) because every row is read and indexed. A CSV that won't upload is usually one that should be split.
Office files are read for their text, not rendered as pages. Uploaded Word/Excel/PowerPoint files have their text extracted so they're searchable, but they don't get a page-image preview — open them with the Download action to see the original formatting. Password-protected Office files can't be read.
Old Office formats (.doc, .xls, .ppt) can't be uploaded — save them as .docx/.xlsx/.pptx first. These are the pre-2007 formats, and despite the similar names they're built completely differently from the modern ones, so renaming the file won't work. Open it in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Pages or WPS Office and use Save As to pick the modern format; printing to PDF also works. The app tells you this when you try, rather than accepting a file it can't read the text out of — a document nothing can read is one your AI can never find.
Receipt extraction is optimized for US retail formats. Receipts from other countries or highly stylized formats may have lower extraction accuracy.
Same image, same document. If the same uploaded file shows up twice (for example, a chat upload that was also queued for inventory scanning, or a retried scan job), only one document is kept. Earlier builds occasionally produced duplicates — if your document count looks inflated, you can delete the extras from the documents list directly.

#Version History

Version	Date	What Changed
14	2026-08-15	Every document now shows its file size — in its details, on List and Text-list rows, and as a working File size sort (it previously sorted everything as equal because nothing recorded a size)
13	2026-08-15	Adding an image to a Documents folder now FILES it — type, date, folder — instead of scanning it into inventory items; use Scan when you want the things in a photo catalogued
12	2026-08-10	Edit notes, `.txt`, `.csv` and `.tsv` in the app — spreadsheets open as a table and edit as text, with quoting help, a clear reason when a file is too big to edit, and "undo that edit" restoring the previous file exactly
11	2026-08-05	Combine — gather separately-uploaded photo pages into one multi-page document from Select mode (iOS + web)
10	2026-07-28	Turn a spreadsheet into inventory items — "Create items" on any CSV/TSV, with a column mapping you approve once per file layout, duplicates skipped, and one undo for the whole import
9	2026-07-28	`.tsv` files upload too, and the format filter row only shows the formats you actually have
8	2026-07-28	Upload `.csv` spreadsheets — table preview, searchable contents, and a new format filter row (CSV / PDFs / Notes / Office / Images)
8	2026-07-28	PDF page previews shown in the same PAGES strip (read-only), with an honest count on long files
7	2026-07-27	Multi-page documents — add photographed pages to one document, view/remove them, ask the AI to read a page (iOS + web + chat)
6	2026-07-09	Upload limit raised 20 MB → 100 MB; very large PDFs degrade to text-only (skip vision analysis)
5	2026-07-09	Upload Office files (.docx/.xlsx/.pptx) — text extracted + searchable, on mobile and web
4	2026-06-07	Terminology: "Admin Web" → "Web" (the web interface)
3	2026-05-27	Updated MCP tools section with current tool names + full tool list (AMB-188)
2	2026-05-02	Note same-image dedup (AMB-106)
1	2026-03-01	Initial guide

Documents — Receipts, Manuals & Files