Import from Google Drive or Dropbox

What it is

Cloud import lets you pick files straight out of Google Drive or Dropbox instead of downloading them to your device and uploading them again. You choose the files in Google's or Dropbox's own picker window, Agentency fetches each one, extracts the text, and trains it exactly like a file you uploaded from disk.

It is a one-time copy, not a live link. This is the point people most often get wrong. Once a file has been imported, editing it in Drive changes nothing in Agentency. The chatbot keeps answering from the version that existed at the moment you imported. If the document changes, import it again.

When you would use it

Use cloud import when the documents already live in Drive or Dropbox and downloading them first is pointless busywork — a folder of product sheets, a policy library, a set of onboarding docs your team maintains in Drive.

Do not use it if you need the chatbot to track changes automatically. Nothing here syncs. For content that changes on a schedule, a website source is the only thing that refreshes itself — see Crawl from a sitemap.

Where to find it

Open Dashboard → Chatbots → your chatbot → Knowledge → Add, then look for the Google Drive or Dropbox card among the source options.

If neither card appears, cloud import is not enabled for this installation. That is a deployment setting, not a plan feature — you cannot unlock it by upgrading. Use Upload files instead.

Before you start

• You need to be signed in to the Google or Dropbox account that holds the files, or be ready to sign in when the picker opens.
• You need permission to open the files. A Drive file shared with you as "view only" is usually fine; a file you can see in a shared folder but cannot open will fail.
• Check your remaining knowledge capacity first, since imported text counts against the same cap as anything else.
• Allow pop-ups for Agentency. Both pickers open in a pop-up window, and a blocker will make the button appear to do nothing.

Steps

1. Open Dashboard → Chatbots → your chatbot → Knowledge → Add.
2. Select the Google Drive or Dropbox card.
3. Complete the provider's sign-in if prompted, and grant access when asked. Agentency only ever receives the files you explicitly pick — it does not get a standing key to your whole drive.
4. Select the files in the picker and confirm.
5. Back in Agentency, set the title and, if you use them, the collection.
6. Leave Start training on and submit.
7. Watch the Knowledge table until each row reads trained.
8. Ask Test Chatbot a question whose answer only exists in one of those files.

What you will see

The Drive and Dropbox cards sit alongside Text, Files, and Website in the Add drawer. Selecting one opens the provider's own picker — that window is Google's or Dropbox's, not Agentency's, so it looks and behaves like their product.

Once the import starts, everything looks like an ordinary upload: rows on the Knowledge table with the same training badges, the same per-row errors, and the same size figures.

The real ceilings

Cloud import is capped exactly like a direct upload, and the caps are enforced on the server while each file downloads — the size the picker reports is not taken on trust.

• 10 MB per file.
• 20 files per import.
• 90 MB total per import.

A file that exceeds the per-file cap fails on its own and the rest of the batch continues. If you need more than twenty files, run the import more than once.

These are transfer ceilings, separate from your plan's knowledge cap. Both apply. See Knowledge limits.

What happens to Google's own file types

A Google Doc, Sheet, Slide deck, or Drawing is not a real file in the way a PDF is — there is nothing to download. Agentency exports these to a standard format first:

In Google Drive	Imported as
Google Docs	Word document
Google Sheets	Excel spreadsheet
Google Slides	PDF
Google Drawings	PDF

The conversion is automatic and you do not choose it. One consequence is worth knowing: a Slides deck arrives as a PDF of the slides, which means text on the slides is imported and speaker notes are not. If the notes are where your real content lives, copy them into text knowledge instead.

Everything else — PDFs, Word files, spreadsheets, images — is fetched exactly as it is, and then follows the normal path. Images and scanned PDFs are transcribed before training, as described in Scanned documents and images.

Limits and plan notes

• Imported text counts toward the same per-chatbot knowledge cap as everything else: Free 400 KB, Starter 10 MB, Standard 20 MB, Pro 40 MB, Agency 60 MB.
• Either provider can be turned off independently. Seeing Dropbox but not Drive (or the reverse) is a normal configuration, not a fault.
• Agentency stores no long-lived key to your cloud account for this feature. The access it uses to fetch your chosen files is short-lived and expires. This is good for your security and it is also why nothing syncs later — there is no standing permission with which to check for changes.
• The file types accepted are the same list as a direct upload. A .pptx sitting in Dropbox is still not importable.

Common problems

I do not see the Drive or Dropbox card.

Cloud import is off for this installation, or a browser extension is blocking the card's script. Use Upload files — the result is identical.

Nothing happens when I select the card.

A pop-up blocker. Allow pop-ups for this site and try again.

The picker opened, I chose files, and nothing imported.

Usually a permission problem on the file itself. Open one of the files in Drive or Dropbox in a private browser window; if you cannot open it there without extra permission, Agentency cannot fetch it either. Start with one small PDF you know you own, confirm that works, then do the rest.

One file failed and the others worked.

Read the error on that row. Typical causes: over 10 MB, an unsupported type, or restricted sharing on that specific document.

I edited the document in Drive and the chatbot still gives the old answer.

Expected. Nothing syncs. Import the file again, then remove the older row so the chatbot is not choosing between two versions of the same document.

The imported Slides deck lost most of its content.

Slides are exported as a PDF of the visible slides. Bullet fragments make thin knowledge and speaker notes are not included. Paste the substance in as text.