I've been using Claude Max, which is the $200/month version claiming to provide "20x more usage than Pro," but I'm running into issues. I can't upload a 1.8 MB .md file that translates to roughly 585 pages of text as a Word or PDF document without hitting the knowledge maximum. I was hoping to upload a total of 2.8 MB worth of files, and it's frustrating because I haven't even used Claude at all today. I'm just a layperson trying to figure this out, and it feels ridiculous that this is happening. Is there something I'm missing?
5 Answers
It sounds like you're just exceeding the context size. From what I've experienced, whether it's a PDF or pasted text, you typically can't go beyond around 72,000 to 78,000 equivalent words, depending on how the information is formatted. This might be what's causing your trouble with uploads.
The problem you're facing is likely due to the context window being fairly small when compared to allowable file sizes. Claude doesn't have a retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) feature, so everything you try to 'upload' adds to your prompt instead of being processed as a separate dataset. The idea of a 'knowledge maximum' is somewhat misleading; it's really about the context window.
Just so you know, having Claude Max doesn’t expand the context window—it just increases how many tokens you get per day. If you're looking to upload larger files, you might want to try splitting them into smaller chunks or focus on the most important parts for each prompt. There are some ways to use local clients or even the OpenAI playground to handle larger uploads without running into this issue.
It seems like the main issue here is a misunderstanding of how "usage" works with Claude. The queries you can make are different from the context window size, which doesn’t actually change between versions. If you need a larger context, you might want to check out Google's Gemini model, which offers a much bigger context window (and is expected to go even larger soon).
Totally get your frustration! They promised a high-end product but it feels like it chokes on basic file uploads. It’s like buying a luxury car and then realizing it can't handle regular traffic. Not cool!
Exactly! I thought having the Max version would let me bypass these limitations, but it seems that's not the case. I guess I need to manage my expectations a bit better.
That makes sense! I didn't realize the context window was so limiting. I'll explore splitting my documents—thanks for the tip!