Google Gemini File Search

Status: Production Ready | Last Verified: 2025-11-18

What Is File Search?

Google Gemini File Search is fully managed RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation):

• Upload documents → Automatic chunking + embeddings + vector search + citations
• No vector database setup required
• 100+ file formats supported (PDF, Word, Excel, code, Markdown, JSON, etc.)
• Built-in grounding with citation metadata
• Cost-effective: $0.15/1M tokens (one-time indexing), free storage + queries

Key difference from other RAG:

• Cloudflare Vectorize: You manage chunking/embeddings
• OpenAI Files API: Tied to Assistants API threads
• File Search: Fully managed, standalone RAG