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Add files — CIMs, financials, memos — so your firm’s knowledge lives in one place and becomes searchable. You’ll find your documents under Files in the sidebar (My Files, Folders, and any connected storage).

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Upload files

You can upload from a folder or directly onto a company.
1

From a folder

Open Files → My Files (or any folder), click Add, and choose New File. You can also drag files onto the area — a Drop files to upload overlay appears.
2

From a company

On a company’s profile, click Add File to upload files scoped to that company.
3

Confirm the upload

In the Add New Files dialog, add your files and click Upload. Files are processed in the background.
Uploaded files are processed automatically so their contents can be found later through search.

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File size limits

Metal enforces per-format size limits on uploads. If a file exceeds its limit, the upload is rejected before it reaches processing. Google Drive presentations, including .pptm files, are capped at 20 MB per file.

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Very large XLSX and XLSM workbooks

Modern Excel workbooks (XLSX, XLSM) accept uploads up to 200 MB. Metal indexes workbooks at or above about 50 MB as metadata-only. Metal records the filename, size, and file type so the workbook stays findable in search and you can reference it from lists, workflows, and agents. Metal does not index individual cell contents. Metal preserves the original workbook, and you can open it in sandbox for detailed reads and analysis. Smaller XLSX and XLSM files continue to be parsed in full, with cell contents indexed and searchable like other documents.

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Macro-enabled PowerPoint (PPTM) decks

Metal processes macro-enabled PowerPoint decks (.pptm) the same way as .pptx files. Metal converts each deck to PDF, indexes its contents for search, and offers the same document types during classification. Metal never runs the macros in a deck.
.pptm files that failed earlier with an unsupported file type error don’t recover on their own. Delete the file from Metal and re-sync or re-upload it. Deleting the file also removes any project links you added to it.

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Password-protected files

Metal doesn’t fail a file because it’s password protected. Instead, the file shows a lock icon and a Password Required status until you supply the password. Files that fail for other reasons show an error icon that explains why the file failed.

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Enter a password

1

Open the password dialog

Open the file’s row menu and choose Update Password. This works in My Files, folders, and the ShareFile, Box, SharePoint, and Google Drive browsers. In those browsers and in the Egnyte browser you can also open the file preview and enter the password there.You can also open the file’s detail page. When the file needs a password, the page shows an Unlock this file callout. Click Update Password in the callout. The callout doesn’t appear for files that are already indexed or still processing. If Metal couldn’t open a file at all, the callout instead reads Couldn’t open file and has no Update Password action.
2

Submit the password

In the Password Required dialog, enter the password under File Password and click Update Password.
Metal then reprocesses the file and indexes its contents. The Password Required dialog closes once Metal accepts the submission. If the password is wrong, Metal finds that out later while it reprocesses the file: the file stays in the Password Required status and shows an incorrect-password note. Open the Unlock this file callout on the file detail page to try again. The dialog stays open with an error only when the request itself fails.

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Put the password in the file name

If a file name contains pw_<password>, Metal applies that password automatically when the file needs one. Put pw_<password> at the end of the name, before the extension, and separate it from the rest of the name with a space, underscore, hyphen, or bracket. Metal reads the file’s display name and keeps the password’s original case. For example, Metal unlocks Q3 Deck pw_Hunter2.pdf with the password Hunter2.
The password in the file name is visible to everyone who can see the file or folder, and to any system that indexes or exports file names. Use pw_ only for passwords that are safe to expose there.

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Automatic password discovery

A workspace can optionally turn on automatic password discovery. When a protected file has no saved password, Metal builds candidates from free text in the file’s own name, such as Model (pw is BBB).xlsx or Q3 (password: abc123).pdf. Metal also builds candidates from nearby files in the same folder:
  • Other file names in the folder, such as a file named password Hunter2.txt
  • Small text files that state the password
  • Saved emails (.eml, .msg) that state the password
Metal tries a pw_<password> in the file’s name first. If that password doesn’t work, Metal does not search the folder. For free-text hints in a file’s name, Metal still checks the folder for more candidates. Metal tries up to five candidates in order until one works. A password Metal finds in a folder text file or saved email applies to every protected file in that folder. Once Metal saves it, the password unlocks those files for anyone who has access to them. A workspace hint can point Metal to where passwords live, for example: “Passwords are in the Readme.txt of each deal folder.” If Metal finds a password, it applies it and reprocesses the file.
The workspace hint, folder text files, and saved emails are plain text. Anyone who can read them can read the password. A discovered password unlocks every protected file in the folder for everyone with access. Never put an actual password in the workspace hint.
Password discovery is a workspace setting that’s only available through the API for now. See passwordDiscovery on Update a workspace in the API reference. You can’t turn it on in the app yet. Ask your Metal admin or Metal contact to enable it.
If no candidate works, enter the correct password yourself.

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Email files into a workflow

Some workflows can have their own inbound email address. When you send or forward an email to that address, Metal starts a workflow run and passes the email body, subject, sender, and attachments into the workflow. Use email-triggered workflows for process-specific intakes, such as NDA review or deal intake. For general document ingestion, you can still upload files directly or bring them in from connected file storage. If you do not see a workflow email address, ask your Metal admin or Metal contact to confirm that the workflow is configured and shared with you. See Run and review Metal AI workflows.

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Find documents

Open Files and use Search files and documents, or press ⌘ K for the global search. See Searching in Metal. You can filter the Files view by company, document type, and source. Search boxes inside a folder match names, not contents.

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Document types

Every file Metal processes is tagged with a document type — for example CIM, Financial Statement, Board Deck, or Quality of Earnings. The document type appears as a small badge wherever the file shows up: the Files table, integration browsers (Egnyte, SharePoint, Box, ShareFile, Google Drive), the file detail page, activities, and global search results.

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Reading the badge

The icon on the badge tells you who set the type:
  • Sparkle icon — Classified by Metal. Metal’s classifier (or its verifier) chose this type from the document’s contents.
  • Person icon — Set by a user. Someone at your firm picked or changed the type by hand.
  • No icon. A legacy classification with no recorded provenance.
Hover the badge to see a tooltip with more detail. A pencil appears on hover in the Files table and in the connected-storage browsers (Egnyte, SharePoint, Box, ShareFile, Google Drive) — click it to change the type without leaving the list. For Metal-classified documents the tooltip shows:
  • A confidence band — High, Medium, or Low — summarizing how sure the classifier was.
  • A short rationale explaining why Metal chose that type based on what it read in the document.
User-set types show only “Set by a user” — no confidence or rationale, because a person made the call.

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Correcting a document type

If Metal got the type wrong, change it inline from the Files table or a connected-storage browser (Egnyte, SharePoint, Box, ShareFile, Google Drive) by hovering the badge and clicking the pencil, or open the file’s detail page and edit it there. Your selection is recorded as a user label, which clears Metal’s prior rationale and confidence so the badge no longer suggests the AI’s reasoning still applies. The new type also feeds back into extraction — see Settings → Extraction for how document types control which metrics Metal pulls from each file.

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CIM Library

Files → CIM Library is the list of CIM screenings. Start a screening from a CIM and link it to a company, or open an existing screening to review extracted financials, analysis, and scores. Metal can also create a screening automatically when a file is classified as a CIM and attached to a company. Admins configure which metrics extraction pulls from each document type under Settings → Extraction. Scoring frameworks live under Settings → Firm Guidance → Scoring. See Work in business development and Financial metrics.

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Folder sharing and access

Only an org Admin, a workspace owner, or the folder’s creator can change who a folder is shared with, switch its General access between private and public, or delete it. Other members can still rename the folder. If the folder’s creator isn’t a workspace owner or admin, their sharing and public-access changes only apply to files and subfolders they own. Other people’s private files inside the folder keep their own access. That creator also can’t delete a folder that still contains private files owned by someone else. A workspace owner or admin can. Project file and folder lists show only the items you could open directly.

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Connected storage

If your firm has connected Egnyte, SharePoint, Box, ShareFile, or Google Drive, you can browse those sources under Files too. Sharing and privacy for connected folders come from the integration, so you can’t edit them in Metal. See File storage integrations. From the folder type picker, you can label a folder as a virtual data room (VDR). That is a folder type, not a separate Files area.