Uploading Content

Everything in Scholarly starts with your materials. Upload PDFs, documents, images, audio files, or paste URLs to get started. The platform processes your content and makes it available for AI chat, flashcard generation, quizzes, podcasts, video lectures, and more.

How to Upload

There are several ways to get content into Scholarly:

• Drag and drop -- Drag any file onto the page from your computer. A drop zone appears to confirm the upload.
• Upload button -- Click the upload button on the home page or in the sidebar to open the file picker.
• Paste a URL -- In the upload modal, paste a website URL or YouTube video link. Scholarly extracts the content automatically.
• From chat -- Attach files directly in the AI chat input by clicking the attachment button.

Supported File Types

Each file can be up to 8 MB on the free plan, or 300 MB on premium.

Scanned PDFs (image-only documents with no selectable text) are fully supported.

For a detailed breakdown of what each format can do, see the Supported File Formats guide.

After Uploading

When you upload a file, Scholarly processes it and shows you follow-up actions depending on the file type:

• Ask AI -- Open AI chat to ask questions about the content.
• Create Flashcards -- Generate a flashcard set from the material.
• Create Quiz -- Build a quiz based on the content.

The most common actions are shown upfront. Open the More menu for the rest:

• Create Podcast -- Turn the content into a multi-speaker audio podcast.
• Create Video Lecture -- Generate a narrated video lecture.
• Create AI Slides -- Generate a slide deck (available for PDFs).

When you pick a podcast, video lecture, or slide deck, a short customization panel appears before generation starts — pick a style preset, voices, length, focus areas, AI model, or add custom instructions. Your choices are kept even if you step back to change the source files. For the details of each option, see the Podcasts, AI Video Lectures, and AI Slides guides.

You do not have to choose an action right away. Uploaded content is saved to your library and you can come back to it later.

PDFs

Uploaded PDFs get their own viewer page with:

• A full document viewer with page navigation.
• AI chat sidebar for asking questions about the content.
• Page-aware AI that knows which page you are reading.

Audio Files

Audio uploads (MP3, M4A, WAV, WebM, OGG) create a recording page with:

• Automatic transcription with timestamps.
• AI-generated summary and topic list.
• A playback controls with speed adjustment.
• AI chat grounded in the transcript.

YouTube Videos

Paste a YouTube URL and Scholarly extracts the video transcript. You can then generate flashcards from the transcript or discuss the video content with AI chat.

Website URLs

Paste any website URL and Scholarly extracts the page content. Use it to generate flashcards or as context for AI chat.

Organization

All uploaded content appears on your home page. From there you can:

• Move to folders -- Drag items into folders or use the menu to organize.
• Rename -- Click the title to rename any uploaded item.
• Pin -- Pin frequently-used content to the sidebar for quick access.
• Archive -- Archive content you no longer need. Archived items are hidden but not deleted.

Tips

• Upload multiple files at once by selecting several in the file picker or dragging a batch onto the page.
• After uploading a PDF, try "Give me the gist" in AI chat to get a quick overview before diving in.
• Use the upload modal from the flashcard creator to generate cards immediately from a new file.