diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index 404ccbc6f7..2bc71d7874 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -119,11 +119,11 @@ MemGPT supports pre-loading data into archival memory, so your agent can referen
 #### Loading Data
 We currently support loading from a directory and database dumps. We highly encourage contributions for new data sources, which can be added as a new [CLI data load command](https://github.com/cpacker/MemGPT/blob/main/memgpt/cli/cli_load.py).
 
-Loading from a directorsy:
+Loading from a directory:
 ```
 # loading a directory
 memgpt load directory --name <NAME> \
-    [--input_dir <DIRECTORY>] [--input-files <FILE1> <FILE2>...] [--recursive]
+    [--input-dir <DIRECTORY>] [--input-files <FILE1> <FILE2>...] [--recursive]
 ```
 Loading from a database dump:
 ```sh
diff --git a/memgpt/cli/cli_load.py b/memgpt/cli/cli_load.py
index 9bbb112f1f..a7227cd6a9 100644
--- a/memgpt/cli/cli_load.py
+++ b/memgpt/cli/cli_load.py
@@ -26,9 +26,12 @@ def load_directory(
 
     if recursive:
         assert input_dir is not None, "Must provide input directory if recursive is True."
+
+    if input_dir is not None:
+        assert len(input_files) == 0, "Either load in a list of files OR a directory."
         reader = SimpleDirectoryReader(
             input_dir=input_dir,
-            recursive=True,
+            recursive=recursive,
         )
     else:
         reader = SimpleDirectoryReader(input_files=input_files)