Copilot says it can accept .zip files but when trying to upload it says it can't read these files yet.

Question

Copilot says it can accept .zip files but when trying to upload it says it can't read these files yet. It tells me the zip parsing is down and will be back up soon but that doesn't seem to be the case. What's going on here? Is it because it's the free version?

Answer 1

Hello Jake!

Thank you for sharing your experience when using Copilot.

From what you described, you're having an issue with the Copilot feature where Copilot shows that it can accept .zip files, but when attempting to upload, it indicates that it cannot read these files.

According to File upload in Microsoft Copilot, zip files currently is not fully a supported file format yet (regardless of free or paid version).

Sometimes Copilot may still respond as if it can open .zip files due to general prompt patterns, but the actual parsing feature isn’t consistently available yet. As Copilot continues to improve, support for more file types may be added over time.

Tips:

• Extract ZIP files first, then upload individual documents.
• Avoid very large files.
• Don’t upload password‑protected or encrypted files.
• Make sure the file is saved locally before uploading.

For the best experience, I recommend sending your feedback via Copilot > “…” (More options) icon > Send feedback, so the engineering team can review it and consider improvements in future updates. It also helps to keep an eye on Microsoft 365 Roadmap in case support for .zip files becomes officially available.

Thank you so much for your time and for reporting this issue!

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Answer 2

Copilot only allows me to upload 3 files at a time. You said above that it will allow 20! How do I do that, please?