Organizing with File Sets

File sets are one of Archivist's most powerful features. They let you organize your documents into meaningful groups — and then search within just those groups when you ask questions.

What Is a File Set?

A file set is a label (or tag) you attach to your documents. Think of it like a colored sticky note you put on a group of files in a filing cabinet — except in Archivist, a single document can have as many sticky notes as you want.

For example, a quarterly financial report could belong to:

• "Q4 Reports"
• "Finance Team"
• "Board Presentation Materials"

All at the same time.

Why File Sets Matter

When you ask the AI a question, it searches through your documents to find relevant passages. Without file sets, it searches everything — which might return results from unrelated projects or outdated documents.

With file sets, you can tell the AI: "Only look in these specific files."

This means:

• More relevant answers — The AI isn't distracted by unrelated material.
• Faster searches — Fewer passages to search through.
• Project separation — Keep work projects, personal research, and school materials completely separate.

How They Work

Tags, Not Folders

Unlike traditional folders, where a file can only live in one place, file sets work like tags. A single passage can belong to multiple file sets, and you can add or remove tags at any time without moving or copying anything.

This flexibility is key. You might have a research paper that's relevant to two different projects — just tag it with both file sets. No duplication needed.

Passage-Level Control

File set tags are applied to individual passages (the smaller sections your documents are broken into during upload), not just whole documents. This gives you fine-grained control:

• Tag only the relevant chapters of a long textbook
• Group specific sections from different documents together
• Create a file set of key findings pulled from across multiple reports

You manage these tags from the Inspect tab, where you can select individual passages and add or remove file set labels.

Every Document Gets "All Docs"

Every passage you upload is automatically included in an "All Docs" file set. This is your catch-all — when you want to search across everything, just select "All Docs" (or don't select any file set at all).

Creating and Using File Sets

During Upload

When you upload documents on the Upload tab, you can assign them to a file set right away. Every passage from those files will be tagged with that label.

After Upload

On the Inspect tab, you can:

1. Select any passages
2. Type a file set name
3. Click Add to tag them or Remove to untag them

If the file set name doesn't exist yet, it gets created automatically. If you remove the last passage from a file set, the empty tag is cleaned up.

When Asking Questions

On the Query tab, use the Select File Set dropdown to choose which group to search. The dropdown shows each file set along with how many passages it contains, so you can see at a glance how much content is in each group.

Example Workflows

Student studying for finals:

• "Biology 101" — All lecture notes and textbook chapters
• "Exam Prep" — Only the passages covering topics on the study guide
• "Lab Reports" — Just the lab write-ups

Lawyer managing cases:

• "Smith v. Jones" — All case documents
• "Depositions" — Only deposition transcripts across all cases
• "Key Evidence" — Tagged passages from any document that are particularly important

Business analyst:

• "Q4 Analysis" — Quarterly reports and financial data
• "Competitor Research" — Market analysis documents
• "Executive Summary Sources" — The specific passages cited in the summary