diff --git a/backend/open_webui/retrieval/loaders/main.py b/backend/open_webui/retrieval/loaders/main.py
index 13570c37f0..bc50269f3d 100644
--- a/backend/open_webui/retrieval/loaders/main.py
+++ b/backend/open_webui/retrieval/loaders/main.py
@@ -314,7 +314,11 @@ class Loader:
     def load(self, filename: str, file_content_type: str, file_path: str) -> list[Document]:
         loader = self._get_loader(filename, file_content_type, file_path)
         docs = loader.load()
-        return [Document(page_content=ftfy.fix_text(doc.page_content), metadata=doc.metadata) for doc in docs]
+        # ftfy's auto mode unescapes entities on every line before the first literal '<', rewriting the document.
+        return [
+            Document(page_content=ftfy.fix_text(doc.page_content, unescape_html=False), metadata=doc.metadata)
+            for doc in docs
+        ]
 
     async def aload(self, filename: str, file_content_type: str, file_path: str) -> list[Document]:
         """