---
title: What Drive makes from your files
type: explanation
section: drive
summary: After an upload Drive scans the file, extracts its text and metadata, and for images builds two WebP renditions. Documents render in your browser.
sources:
  - evolve-content-extract/src/registry-image/registry-image-rendition-config.ts
  - evolve-content-extract/src/registry-image/registry-image-rendition-executor.ts
  - evolve-front-end/components/content-platform/content-platform-shell-v2-client.utils.ts
  - evolve-front-end/lib/content-platform/raw-text.ts
  - evolve-front-end/lib/content-registry/archive-extraction.ts
verified:
  at: 2026-09-04
  env: code
  by: content-lane-drive
ttl_days: 45
related: [drive/open-and-preview-a-file, drive/file-will-not-open, drive/accepted-file-types]
---

An uploaded file goes through the same sequence every time: it is registered, scanned for malware, and then processed. Processing extracts the file's text and metadata, and for an image it also builds two smaller WebP copies. Nothing is produced for a file the scan blocked.

## Where you see the progress

The file's **Info** panel lists the processing lifecycle, and each stage shows as a chip:

| Chip | What it tracks |
| --- | --- |
| **Registry** | Whether the item exists in Drive. |
| **Scan** | The malware scan. **Clean** is the only state that lets processing continue. |
| **Extraction** | The parse of the file contents. |
| **Metadata** | The facts Drive read out of the file. |
| **Preview** | Whether a preview and extracted text exist. |
| **Search** | Whether the file is indexed for search. |
| **Readiness** | The rollup of the above. |
| **Delivery** | Whether the item is published, and its script and content-security policy. |

## Images

For an image Drive builds exactly two renditions, both WebP:

| Rendition | Longest side | Purpose |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Thumbnail | 320 pixels | List and card thumbnails. |
| Preview | 1600 pixels | Inline viewing. |

Each rendition is capped at 8 MB. Renditions are built from a source under 25 MB, no larger than 16,384 pixels on a side and 40 million pixels in total, in GIF, JPEG, PNG or WebP. Anything outside those bounds keeps its original and no rendition.

Some image formats cannot be shown in a browser at all without a rendition. For those the viewer says so in place, for example **TIFF originals require a derived browser image before inline rendering.** or **Camera RAW originals require a derived browser image before inline rendering.** The extracted facts stay available under **Image facts**.

Renditions were activated in production on 2 September 2026.

## Documents

Drive does not build page images for documents. It extracts their text and metadata, and the browser renders the document itself: a PDF in a browser viewer, a Word document paginated on the page, a spreadsheet as a table.

A scanned PDF has no text to extract. Drive says **Extracted text is unavailable for this item. This PDF may require OCR.** and offers **Run OCR** on the file's **Metadata**. OCR reports its own state, from **OCR queued** and **OCR running** through **OCR complete**, **OCR partial** or **OCR failed**, and its output appears as a related file labelled **OCR text**.

**Run OCR** is refused with a stated reason: **File type not supported for OCR.**, **Waiting for malware scan pass.**, **Item readiness is blocked for processing.** or **You do not have permission to run OCR.**

## Video and audio

A video gets a poster frame, and speech is transcribed on request. See [Open and preview a file](/help/drive/open-and-preview-a-file) for the transcript controls.

## Archives

A `zip`, `tar` or `tgz` upload is unpacked so its contents become items. The chip reports **Extraction queued**, **Extracting**, **Extracted**, or **Extracted with errors**, and the item then offers **View extracted files**.

An oversized archive reports **Too large to extract**, and Drive explains: **The archive is over the extraction size limit, so its contents were not unpacked. The archive itself uploaded successfully and can be downloaded.**

## Extracted text

The text Drive pulls out of a file is what powers search and retrieval, and what the **Text** view shows. Its state is reported on the file, and the messages are exact:

- **Extracted text is still being prepared. Try again in a moment.**
- **Raw text isn't available for this file type.**
- **Text extraction failed for this item.**
- **Raw text is not available for this item yet.**

A failed extraction leaves the file itself intact and downloadable. Use **Refresh metadata** on the file to ask for another pass.

## Related

- [Open and preview a file](/help/drive/open-and-preview-a-file)
- [File will not open](/help/drive/file-will-not-open)
- [Accepted file types](/help/drive/accepted-file-types)