I can't find a document I uploaded

02What you're seeing

You uploaded or forwarded a document — maybe yesterday, maybe weeks ago — and it is not showing up on the Files page. You scroll, you search, and nothing matches.

03Most likely cause

A filter is hiding it. The Files page has three filters that combine: the search box, the type dropdown, and the To link toggle. If any of them is set, you only see a slice of your documents.

The fix: Clear all three. Empty the search box. Set the type dropdown to All types. Switch the To link filter off. Now look again. If the document is there, you know which filter was hiding it.

04Other things to check

• The sender is sitting in the waiting room. Open Settings → Senders and look under the Unknown filter. If the email you forwarded came from a sender Hemma had never seen, the message and its attachments are held there until you approve. See approving or rejecting a sender.

• The sender was rejected. Same place — Settings → Senders, under Rejected. Anyone you previously rejected has their messages quarantined for seven days, then deleted. If you rejected by mistake within the last week, Restore them and the messages come back.

• The attachment was filtered. Hemma only processes PDFs and supported image types (JPEG, PNG, HEIC, WebP). Spreadsheets, ZIP files, and Word documents do not become documents in your project. Open the message detail page in Inbox to see exactly which attachments were processed and which were skipped, and why. See file size, file types, and what's scanned.

• The file was over 10 MB. Same place — message detail page lists the rejection reason. Ask the sender to compress and re-send.

• The document is a duplicate. Hemma deduplicates aggressively: same Message-ID, same content hash, or same body+sender within a day all collapse to the original. The duplicate is kept but parked behind the original. Search by the contractor name; the original document should turn up.

• The email was malicious or flagged as phishing. Hemma drops messages flagged as phishing or prompt-injection before they ever reach the senders list. They do not appear in your project at all. If a real contractor's email is being dropped this way (rare, but possible), email hello@gethemma.app with the contractor's address.

• You are looking at the wrong project. If you are part of more than one project, check the project switcher in the top-left corner. Documents only belong to the project they were uploaded into — there is no global view.

• The document is still processing. Newly arrived documents take about thirty seconds to process. Refresh the page.

05If none of this worked

If you have walked the list above and the document is genuinely not anywhere — not in Files, not in Settings → Senders, not on the message detail page — email hello@gethemma.app with:

• The approximate date and time you uploaded or forwarded the document.
• The sender email address (if it came in by forwarding).
• The contractor name and amount, if it is an invoice or quote.
• A screenshot of your Inbox showing the message you forwarded, if applicable.

We can trace it from there.

06Related

• Finding a document
• An email I forwarded didn't arrive
• Approving or rejecting a sender