File uploads
A File Upload field lets a respondent attach a document to their answers. It sits in the palette’s Advanced group. This page covers what respondents can send, and what happens to the file afterwards.
What a respondent can upload
Section titled “What a respondent can upload”| Limit | Value |
|---|---|
| File types | pdf, png, jpg, jpeg, gif, webp, heic, doc, docx, xls, xlsx, ppt, pptx, csv, txt |
| Size | Between 1 byte and 4 MB per file |
Anything outside those is refused as the respondent chooses it, with This file type is not accepted or Files must be between 1 byte and 4MB.
When the file reaches your records
Section titled “When the file reaches your records”A file takes two steps, the same as the answers around it:
- On submit, the file is attached to the staged response, so you can open it in the responses console while you review, before anything is written.
- At processing, the file is linked to the record the submission creates or updates.
That order is deliberate: an uploaded file stays private to the response until an internal step attaches it. If a file is missing from a record, check that the submission has actually been processed. See Processing responses onto records.
A file uploaded to a question that a visibility rule hid is never linked to the record, even though the upload itself succeeded, because an answer the respondent could not see never reaches your data.
Things worth knowing
Section titled “Things worth knowing”- A closed form refuses uploads. A form that is not accepting responses, or that has reached its response cap, will not take files either, so a respondent cannot leave files behind for a submission that will not be accepted.
- Save-and-continue keeps them. A respondent who saves and comes back finds files they had already uploaded still attached. See Save-and-continue.
- The message “This form does not accept file uploads” means the form has no File Upload field, or the link points at a different form than you think.
- A mapped File Upload raises a publish warning. It does not block publishing: it is there because file fields behave differently from ordinary answers.
- The palette tints this field green, along with Signature, Payment, GPS Location and Barcode, because it needs the full form to run. See Field types.