Use caseRead
Get up to speed on a folder you just inherited
Open a handover folder as it is, find out what is in it and what matters, and keep a one-page note where every point names the document it came from and quotes the passage.
- You start with
- A folder you have not read — a project you are taking over, a team drive, a data room. Mixed formats, untidied.
- Time
- About ten minutes for the first pass.
- Your part
- Nearly all of it — reading answers and clicking two quotes.
What you'll end up with
- A one-page note in the folder: what it holds, and the three or four documents you actually need to read.
- What has been decided and what is still open — every point naming its document and quoting the passage.
- The list of files the answer was built from, so you know how much of the folder it covers.
And the answer this ten minutes is really for: does it read your documents well enough to be worth keeping?
How to get up to speed on a folder, step by step
Open the folder as it is.
YouNo import, no conversion, no tidying — the file tree is the folder on disk. Right-click anything that should stay out, such as a personnel folder, to keep the AI out of it; the tree marks the line you drew.
Ask what is in it.
You ask · MindMax answersAskWhat is in here, and which documents would I need to read first to take this over?
Mention the folder with @ and ask what you would ask the person who left. It works the way you would: a one-line gist of each document, the relevant ones picked and opened, the sections that matter read in full.
Read the source list before the answer.
YouA file counts only if it was opened or quoted; the rest are given as a number. Three sources out of eighty is an answer about three documents — narrow the question or point it at a subfolder.
Ask the question your job turns on.
You ask · MindMax answersAskWhat has been decided about the launch date, and what is still open?
Each claim names its document, so where the March plan and the May email disagree you see both. That disagreement is usually the most useful thing in the folder.
Click two quotes.
YouPick the two claims you would act on first. Each quote is aligned to its source and opens on the page, slide or passage; one that does not match is flagged. Ninety seconds here tells you how far to trust the rest.
Read the documents that matter.
YouNow you know which ones. Select a passage to have it explained, or drag a box around a table or a chart and ask about just that.
Keep the answer as a note.
YouIt lands in the folder as Markdown with its citations intact. Add the two questions you still need to ask the person who handed it over — next week, questions across the folder can draw on this note too.
Why it works here
The folder is the knowledge base
You open it where it already is, mess included. Nothing is copied into an app, and you decide which parts the AI may not read.
Your folder as the knowledge base →Every claim quotes its document
One question reads across up to 200 documents, and each point names its file and quotes it — so documents that disagree show up as a disagreement, not an average.
Ask questions across a folder →It tells you what it actually read
The source list counts only files it opened or quoted, so you can tell an answer about the folder from an answer about three files in it.
How the source list works →Also used here: Region questions · Guide: asking questions about your documents
Where it gets hard
- A folder brings in up to 200 documents.
Mentioning a bigger folder takes in the first 200 readable ones. Ask about the subfolder that matters, or leave the question on the default whole-folder scope, which searches rather than reads everything.
- Very large folders rely on search, and search can miss.
At a few thousand files nothing reads them all. It tells you when a search did not cover everything; when the answer matters, narrow the folder.
- The first open of a big folder takes a while.
PDFs and Office files are read in the background; notes are ready at once. Until the rest are, answers say how many documents are not ready yet.
- Scans are invisible until recognised.
A PDF that is really photographs has no text until you run recognition on it, one document at a time. Until then the answer cannot mention it.
- Old .doc and .xls files are not read.
Save them as .docx or .xlsx first.
- It knows what is written down, not why.
The reason behind a decision usually lives in a meeting nobody minuted. It can show what the documents say and where they disagree; the person who handed it over still has to tell you the rest.
- Ten minutes is a map, not an understanding.
The note tells you what to read. Reading it is still yours.