# How import works

> What import accepts, its size limits, the frontmatter it reads, its options, and how links and deleted notes are handled.

Page: https://docs.memex.tools/how-import-works

**Settings › Notes** › **Import**, or **Import** on an empty Notes screen. Drop or choose Markdown (`.md`, `.markdown`) and text (`.txt`) files, or a ZIP of a folder. Each file becomes one verified note.

## What is accepted

A ZIP may be up to 32 MB and hold up to two thousand entries, and what it unpacks to is bounded too, hidden and unsupported files included; the default is 100 MB. A ZIP that would take the memex past its notes limit is refused whole, before anything is written. See [What memex does not do](https://docs.memex.tools/what-memex-does-not-do).

A file larger than the note body limit (2 MB by default, frontmatter included) is skipped and named; a file that is not UTF-8, or whose frontmatter uses YAML aliases, runs deeper than 128 levels or exceeds 64 KB, refuses the whole ZIP before anything is written. A loose-file upload is checked file by file instead: the files that fit are saved and each one that does not is named with its reason. Both limits apply to every account, whatever key it brought.

Folders, hidden files and folders (an Obsidian vault's `.obsidian`, a `.git` directory) are skipped silently, and anything that is not text is skipped and named. Nothing else, in particular no PDF and no image, is accepted.

> **Self-hosted memex**
>
> A self-hosted memex has no notes limit. See [What memex does not do](https://docs.memex.tools/what-memex-does-not-do).

## Frontmatter

Frontmatter `title`, `tags` (a list or a comma-separated string), `summary`, `summary_by` (who wrote the description), `created` and `updated` are read; every other key is dropped. A date without a time zone, as Obsidian writes one, is read as UTC, and a date in the future is ignored. A file without a title takes its filename.

## Options

Two options for ZIPs: **Skip notes whose title already exists** (on by default) and **Top-level folders become tags**, plus a field for extra tags to put on everything imported. **Analyze** first shows what would be created and what would be skipped; **Import** does it.

## Links and deleted notes

Links between imported notes resolve by title and by path, in any order, and a final pass after the import connects them. If the archive contains notes you deliberately deleted before, memex says so and holds them out unless you tick **Import them again**. Imported notes become searchable by meaning as the index catches up over the following minutes.

## Related

- [Import notes](https://docs.memex.tools/import): Bring in Markdown or text files, or a ZIP of a folder such as an Obsidian vault.
- [How export works](https://docs.memex.tools/how-export-works): What a downloaded note holds, how a ZIP of notes is named, the full export, and exporting skills.
- [How a note works](https://docs.memex.tools/how-notes-work): What a note holds, how links and backlinks resolve, what is recorded about it, and the ways a note arrives.