How to beginner · 3 min read

How to load documents in LlamaIndex

Q: How to load documents in LlamaIndex

Use LlamaIndex's document loaders like SimpleDirectoryReader or TextLoader to load documents from files or directories into Document objects. Then, pass these documents to LlamaIndex's index builders for querying and retrieval.

Quick answer

Use LlamaIndex's document loaders like SimpleDirectoryReader or TextLoader to load documents from files or directories into Document objects. Then, pass these documents to LlamaIndex's index builders for querying and retrieval.

PREREQUISITES

Python 3.8+
pip install llama-index>=0.6.0
Basic knowledge of Python file handling

Setup

Install the llama-index package via pip and prepare your environment.

bash

pip install llama-index>=0.6.0

Step by step

Load documents from a directory using SimpleDirectoryReader and print their content.

python

from llama_index import SimpleDirectoryReader

# Load documents from a local directory
loader = SimpleDirectoryReader('data')
documents = loader.load_data()

# Print the first document's text
print(documents[0].text)

output

This is the content of the first document loaded from the 'data' directory.

Common variations

You can also load single files using TextLoader or load documents asynchronously with async loaders if supported.

python

from llama_index import TextLoader

# Load a single text file
loader = TextLoader('data/example.txt')
documents = loader.load_data()
print(documents[0].text)

output

Contents of example.txt file.

Troubleshooting

If you get a FileNotFoundError, verify the file path and directory exist.
Ensure your documents are in supported formats like .txt or .md.
Check that llama-index is up to date to avoid deprecated loader issues.

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Key Takeaways

Use SimpleDirectoryReader to bulk load documents from folders.
Use TextLoader for loading individual files.
Always verify file paths and supported formats to avoid loading errors.

Verified 2026-04

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