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API Reference
Files

Upload file

POST/files

Upload a file that can be used across various endpoints. Individual files can be up to 512 MB, and each project can store up to 2.5 TB of files in total. There is no organization-wide storage limit.

  • The Assistants API supports files up to 2 million tokens and of specific file types. See the Assistants Tools guide for details.
  • The Fine-tuning API only supports .jsonl files. The input also has certain required formats for fine-tuning chat or completions models.
  • The Batch API only supports .jsonl files up to 200 MB in size. The input also has a specific required format.

Please contact us if you need to increase these storage limits.

Body ParametersForm DataExpand Collapse
file: file

The File object (not file name) to be uploaded.

purpose: "assistants" or "batch" or "fine-tune" or 3 more

The intended purpose of the uploaded file. One of:

  • assistants: Used in the Assistants API
  • batch: Used in the Batch API
  • fine-tune: Used for fine-tuning
  • vision: Images used for vision fine-tuning
  • user_data: Flexible file type for any purpose
  • evals: Used for eval data sets
Accepts one of the following:
"assistants"
"batch"
"fine-tune"
"vision"
"user_data"
"evals"
expires_after: optional object { anchor, seconds }

The expiration policy for a file. By default, files with purpose=batch expire after 30 days and all other files are persisted until they are manually deleted.

anchor: "created_at"

Anchor timestamp after which the expiration policy applies. Supported anchors: created_at.

seconds: number

The number of seconds after the anchor time that the file will expire. Must be between 3600 (1 hour) and 2592000 (30 days).

minimum3600
maximum2592000
ReturnsExpand Collapse
FileObject = object { id, bytes, created_at, 6 more }

The File object represents a document that has been uploaded to OpenAI.

id: string

The file identifier, which can be referenced in the API endpoints.

bytes: number

The size of the file, in bytes.

created_at: number

The Unix timestamp (in seconds) for when the file was created.

filename: string

The name of the file.

object: "file"

The object type, which is always file.

purpose: "assistants" or "assistants_output" or "batch" or 5 more

The intended purpose of the file. Supported values are assistants, assistants_output, batch, batch_output, fine-tune, fine-tune-results, vision, and user_data.

Accepts one of the following:
"assistants"
"assistants_output"
"batch"
"batch_output"
"fine-tune"
"fine-tune-results"
"vision"
"user_data"
Deprecatedstatus: "uploaded" or "processed" or "error"

Deprecated. The current status of the file, which can be either uploaded, processed, or error.

Accepts one of the following:
"uploaded"
"processed"
"error"
expires_at: optional number

The Unix timestamp (in seconds) for when the file will expire.

Deprecatedstatus_details: optional string

Deprecated. For details on why a fine-tuning training file failed validation, see the error field on fine_tuning.job.

Upload file

curl https://api.openai.com/v1/files \
    -H 'Content-Type: multipart/form-data' \
    -H "Authorization: Bearer $OPENAI_API_KEY" \
    -F 'file=@/path/to/file' \
    -F purpose=assistants
{
  "id": "id",
  "bytes": 0,
  "created_at": 0,
  "filename": "filename",
  "object": "file",
  "purpose": "assistants",
  "status": "uploaded",
  "expires_at": 0,
  "status_details": "status_details"
}
Returns Examples
{
  "id": "id",
  "bytes": 0,
  "created_at": 0,
  "filename": "filename",
  "object": "file",
  "purpose": "assistants",
  "status": "uploaded",
  "expires_at": 0,
  "status_details": "status_details"
}