> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.galtea.ai/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Read File

> Get the content of a stored file without writing it to this machine.

Use this when the bytes go straight into a request of your own: the base64 image or document part a multimodal model takes, or a parser that reads from memory. Reach for [`download()`](/sdk/api/storage/download) instead when the file is meant to stay on disk, or when a library you call only takes a path.

An input file is capped at 20 MB, so reading one into memory is safe.

## Returns

Returns the file's `bytes`.

## Example

```python theme={"system"}
document_bytes = galtea.storage.read(test_case.input_files[0])
encoded = base64.b64encode(document_bytes).decode()
```

Inside an agent callback, the files of the current turn arrive as [`input_data.input_files`](/sdk/api/agent/input#reading-attached-files), so the same call reads the document the test case attached.

## Parameters

<ResponseField name="file" type="string | InputFile" required>
  The file to fetch: an [`InputFile`](/sdk/api/test-case/upload-input-file) read from `test_case.input_files` or `input_data.input_files`, or the URI of any file this organization uploaded.
</ResponseField>

## Errors

| Error        | Cause                                                                                                              |
| ------------ | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |
| `ValueError` | No URI was given, or the value names a file on this machine.                                                       |
| `Exception`  | The link expired, the file belongs to another organization, the platform returned no link, or the transfer failed. |

<Note>
  A failed read raises instead of returning `None`, and the message never contains the
  presigned link.
</Note>