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type: reference
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# Project-level Secure Files **(FREE)**
> [Introduced](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/merge_requests/78227) in GitLab 14.8. [Deployed behind the `ci_secure_files` flag](../../administration/feature_flags.md), disabled by default.
FLAG:
On self-managed GitLab, by default this feature is not available. To make it available,
ask an administrator to [enable the feature flag](../../administration/feature_flags.md)
named `ci_secure_files`. Limited to 100 secure files per project. Files must be smaller
than 5 MB. The feature is not ready for production use.
You can securely store files for use in CI/CD pipelines as "secure files". These files
are stored securely outside of your project's repository, and are not version controlled.
It is safe to store sensitive information in these files. Secure files support both
To use your secure files in a CI/CD job, you must use the [`load-secure-files`](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/incubation-engineering/mobile-devops/load-secure-files)