Import unorganized PDFs from your computer

Before discovering Paperpile, you may have stored all your PDFs in folders on your computer. Any collection of unorganized PDFs can be used as a starting point for your Paperpile library.

When you upload PDFs, Paperpile analyzes each file by extracting its data and matching it with online databases. The goal is to find the correct metadata and add it to your library.

Upload PDF files and folders with PDFs

In Paperpile, go to the top left corner and click Add > Upload files to open the file upload dialog

Click Choose files or Choose folder to upload files or whole folders.

Tip: You can skip the above steps by simply dragging and dropping files from your computer’s file manager to the Paperpile window — the file upload dialog will show up automatically. Note: You can also import many other file types like BibTeX or RIS, see Import data from any program via RIS or BibTeX files

At the moment, you can only upload files with a maximum size of 100MB.

Choose a destination for your imported PDFs

By default, all uploaded PDFs will be added to My Library, which is your personal library. Before starting the import, you can choose a destination. This can be a folder, label, shared library, or shared folder.

Keeping your folder structure

When you upload a folder of PDFs with subfolders, Paperpile can recreate this structure in your library. Simply select the Keep folder organization option.

Avoiding duplicates

If the option Skip duplicates is turned on, any files that you try to upload that already exist will be skipped and not imported. This option is on by default.

Note: If an uploaded PDF matches an existing reference, it will be attached to that reference regardless of the Skip duplicates option if the existing reference has no attached PDF or the attached PDF is different from the one being uploaded.

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