Manual Uploads
Manual uploads give you full control. You add one item at a time, you pick the title, and the content stays exactly as you put it in — no background syncing, no surprise updates. Best when the source is small, finished, or doesn't live in a system Echo can connect to.
On this page
How manual uploads work
Every manual upload goes through the same flow.
- Open the assistant you want to feed.
- Go to the Contents page in the sidebar.
- Click Add content and pick a type.
- Fill in the form for that type and submit.
Echo indexes the item, embeds it for semantic search, and makes it available to the AI within seconds. You'll see the new entry in your content library immediately.
The five manual upload types
| Type | What you give us | Good for |
|---|---|---|
| Text | Title + body you type or paste (up to 500 KB) | FAQs, pricing info, policies, "about us" content |
| URL | A single web page link | Blog posts, service pages, landing pages |
| YouTube | A single video link | Product walkthroughs, webinars, explainer videos |
| A PDF file (up to 10 MB, unlimited on VIP) | Manuals, brochures, reports, whitepapers | |
| CSV | A CSV file with many rows (Pro and VIP only) | Migrating from another tool, bulk uploads |
Click into any type for step-by-step setup, common errors, and the exact differences from related options.
Manual uploads vs synced sources
Manual uploads and synced sources coexist — most assistants use both. The difference is who keeps things fresh.
- Manual — you decide when content goes in and when it changes. Echo doesn't touch it after upload. Use refresh to re-fetch URL or YouTube content if the source updates.
- Synced — Echo polls or listens to the source and updates the library on its own. Best for content that already lives in WordPress, Framer, on a public site with a sitemap, or in a YouTube channel.
Single page or whole site?
Echo has two ways to handle websites. The URL manual upload indexes a single page. The Website synced source crawls a whole site via its sitemap. Same trade-off for YouTube: single video vs whole channel.
Tips for picking the right type
- If it's already on the web — use URL or PDF, not text. Cleaner provenance, refreshable, and visitors get a link in the answer.
- If it's a structured doc with formatting — PDF preserves it better than copy-pasting into text.
- If you have more than 20 items to add at once — CSV. Manual one-by-one will burn an afternoon.
- If the source updates often — consider a synced source instead.
- If it's truly one-off knowledge — text is the simplest. Title, body, save, done.