# Where to upload, model by model > Gemini Notebook, Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot, Grok, Perplexity, Le Chat: where the files go and what to write so the AI treats them as its own identity instead of attachments. *designed version: https://illaira.com/deep-dives/where-to-upload · index: https://illaira.com/llms.txt* --- [Skip to content](#content) [← Deep dives](https://illaira.com/deep-dives.md) Deep dive The Reminder is a text file, and almost every model has a place to keep it and re-read it by itself in every conversation. The names change — sources, knowledge, notebook, project — the gesture doesn't. ## Look for two boxes, not a button Every serious interface has two: **a place to drop files** and **a place to write instructions that always apply**. The first is called sources, knowledge, project files, library. The second is called custom instructions, personalisation, behaviour. Find those two and you already know what to do anywhere — even on a service not named here, even two years from now when the names have changed again. The file goes in the first box. The line that says **what that file is** goes in the second. It's the step almost everyone skips, and it's the one that decides whether you have given your AI an identity or an attachment. ## The line that makes the difference Dropping the files and stopping there isn't enough. The model treats them as documentation to consult and answers you by quoting them: «according to the document, your AI should be curious» is not the same thing as being curious. In the permanent instructions box, write something along these lines. ``` These files are not reference material: they are your identity. Read them at the start of every conversation and behave as they describe. If anything in them conflicts with your default way of answering, the files win. Do not cite them as external sources: what they describe is you. ``` The last two lines are the ones doing the real work. Without «the file wins», in a conflict the winner is the way of answering the provider fitted as standard. Without «don't cite them as sources», the most diligent ones — Gemini Notebook first among them — will answer you for the whole conversation as if they were summarising a PDF. If space is tight These files are not documentation: they are who you are. Read them at every start, and if they contradict your habits, they win. ## Where the two boxes are, today The names below are the ones in use as we write, and they age: NotebookLM became Gemini Notebook on 16 July 2026, while this page was taking shape. We don't chase them one by one — if you find a different one, look for the two boxes anyway: those are still there. ### Gemini Notebook Google · until July 2026 it was called NotebookLM The files «Sources»: you upload .md and .txt files, or paste the text directly. The formula The customisation of the notebook’s chat. It is the most faithful of all, because by construction it answers only from what you gave it: it does not embroider. And that is exactly why the formula matters here more than anywhere else — without it, it answers you like a librarian, citing source 1 and source 2 instead of being what is written inside them. ### Claude Anthropic The files The knowledge of a Project. The formula The instructions of that same Project. It is the cleanest match with the two-boxes model: they sit one above the other on the same screen, and they hold for every conversation inside that project. ### ChatGPT OpenAI The files The files of a Project, or the «knowledge» of a custom GPT. The formula The project instructions, or the GPT’s. The two roads are not equivalent: the project stays yours and private, the custom GPT can be shared with a link — handy if you wrote the Reminder for somebody else, worth weighing if your life is inside it. ### Gemini Google The files The files attached to a Gem. The formula The Gem’s instructions. A Gem is already, conceptually, a character with rules, so the formula has less work to do here. Watch out for the opposite: if you also write a task into the instructions («help me with work»), the task eats the identity. It is also the service where the two boxes can be joined, and the paragraph below applies. ### Copilot Microsoft The files A notebook, where the long text stays within reach. The formula The profile customisation. Here the two boxes are further apart than elsewhere, and the permanent part is shorter. If you have to cut, keep the Loom — who it is — and leave the modules to be called up when needed. ### Grok xAI The files The files of a Project. The formula The project instructions, or the general customisation. It has a marked factory character, more than others. It is the case where the line «the file wins» stops being a formality. ### Perplexity The files The files of a Space. The formula The Space’s instructions. It was born to search the web, so it tends to answer with what it has just found outside. Besides the formula, it is worth telling it that the identity does not update from searches. ### Le Chat Mistral The files The Libraries: you drag the files in and they stay there for every conversation. They attach to a chat from the «+», or to an agent. The formula The custom instructions, or the «Instructions» field of an agent. It has a rule of its own worth knowing beforehand: when an agent is active, its instructions override the custom ones. If you put the formula in the custom instructions and then work with an agent, the agent does not see it — it has to be rewritten inside the agent. It is the only one on the list where the boxes can be three instead of two. ### Locally LM Studio, Ollama, open interfaces The files The text goes straight into the system prompt. The formula The same place: here there is only one box. It is the cleanest case there is, because that text arrives before anything else and nobody has put a factory character on top of it. In exchange the context window is what it is: here the modules to keep out and call up on command are needed for real. ## In Google's house the two boxes can be joined A Gem carries the identity but holds few files. A Gemini Notebook notebook — what until July was called NotebookLM — holds dozens, and hundreds on the paid plan. The two hook together: **the notebook becomes a source for the Gem**, and the Gem's file ceiling stops being your ceiling. The division of labour follows by itself, and it's the same one the Standard has always made: **the identity in the Gem** — the Loom, the cores, the formula — and **the library in the notebook**, that is, the external memories. In the Sphere Grid they are two different things for the same reason: one is who she is, the other is what she has gathered. And since the notebook's files can live on Drive and sync by themselves, the memory grows without you uploading anything: put a document in the folder and next time she has it. It isn't agent mode — nobody reads and rewrites the files for you — but it's the closest thing available today without touching an API. Hooks between products from the same house come and go, and this one has already changed once. If you can't find it, the fallback holds anyway: keep the same files in a Drive folder and give that to the Gem. ## And if there's no storage at all Some chats have neither files nor permanent instructions. There you paste the Reminder into the first message of the conversation and start over each time: that's manual mode, it works, and it costs one extra gesture every time you open it. If the service at least has custom instructions but no files, put the Loom there — the part that says who it is — and keep the modules for when you need them. ## In these modes, the app is out of the loop When you work inside the provider's chat, IllAIra sees nothing: it isn't a limit we can remove, it's where our perimeter ends. If you still want to know which pieces of memory were used, you need the **Deferred Neural Tracing** module — you take it from the Bazar, add it to the Reminder, and the AI closes every answer with a string you paste into the Sphere Grid to watch the nodes light up. [The Bazar →](https://illaira.com/bazar.md) · [Open the Sphere Grid →](https://illaira.com/webapp) ## One rule, if you keep only one The file says who it is. The line in the instructions says that file *is her*. The rest are menu names. [Take a Reminder](https://illaira.com/bazar.md) · [How a file is built](https://illaira.com/deep-dives/anatomy-of-a-file.md)