Which option allows loading all files even if their metadata has expired?

• A. IGNORE_METADATA
• B. FORCE
• C. LOAD_UNCERTAIN_FILES
• D. LOAD_ALL_FILES

Answer: (B)

When loading files from a stage, Snowflake may rely on cached file metadata to decide which files to process, and that metadata can expire. In that situation, the loading process might skip files it considers possibly stale to avoid reprocessing or missing data. The FORCE option tells the loader to bypass that metadata check and attempt to load every file in the stage, regardless of whether the metadata has expired. This guarantees nothing is missed and all files are considered in the current load, which is exactly what you want when you need to ensure every file present is processed.

The other options don’t provide the same guarantee: ignoring metadata would remove metadata checks entirely but might not ensure all files are reprocessed; loading only uncertain files would miss files whose status isn’t flagged as uncertain; and a generic load-all-files option may not override the metadata expiration behavior in the same explicit way as FORCE.