You can send your friends and colleagues much larger files than average for free and without registering. Here are the best file senders.
Probably everyone who uses the internet has faced the problem that large files are not so easy to deliver to others over the web – whether it’s a large presentation or high-resolution photos, videos, films, archives. Email providers have no interest in supporting the sending of large files in the first place, so the email attachment will almost certainly fail (even if your own account is capable of sending files of 50 MB or more, you can’t be sure that the recipient will be able to handle the size), and USB storage is not an option in most cases. We may not see the address until days later – or, even more to the exclusion of a physical medium, the other party may live in a completely different country. The obvious solution is some kind of cloud hosting service, as most of them offer file sharing – but this is far from the most convenient option, and there are cloud platforms that specialize in file sharing.
Using these can save you a lot of hassle, for example, by setting a time limit you don’t have to worry about the shared file taking up unnecessary space on your hard drive. With cloud-based services, it makes a big difference whether 1-2 GB is “wasted”, as the free quota is typically between 5-15 GB, which is not hard to fill these days.
WeTransfer
It is considered by many to be one of the best services, and for good reason. The free by default solution allows you to send up to 2 GB of files, but you don’t have to pay much for the extra services: the Pro version costs €12 per month. In return, you get 1 TB of storage per user account, and you can send up to 20 GB of files in one step instead of 2.
You can even send files without compression, as you can also share folders via the service. Basic file sending is just a few mouse clicks – and then, of course, there’s the option to keep track of who has responded to the invitation to download. There’s also a time limit: in the free version it’s automatically seven days, but in the Pro version you can ask for uploaded files to be deleted after a week or a month – and even keep important documents forever.
For businesses, the Pro version is also recommended because you can set a password for downloading, create a unique URL and choose a unique wallpaper on the download page.
Mega
Mega is a New Zealand file sharing service, with the great feature that even the free version offers up to 50 GB of storage space. However, this can be increased up to 16 TB, for a monthly fee of €30. The biggest difference, however, is the amount of storage space, and the number of services available in the free package is also very generous: in addition to secure sending, for example, you can also request automatic backup and version tracking, as well as secure deletion of stored files.
Mega can be used not only from a browser but also from a smartphone app!
Telegram
An obvious solution for occasional sending is to send the file or files using a chat program – one of the advantages of this is that you can do it not only from your PC but also from your phone. However, this plan is hampered by file size limits with most providers. Facebook’s WhatsApp, for example, has a limit of 100 MB, but a similar limit applies to almost all chat platforms.
Telegram handles files up to 2 GB, and there are no security concerns when using it, as data is encrypted between users.
Resilio Sync
Torrents are great not only for downloading but also for sharing files – even if few people think so at first. Resilio Sync works using the BitTorrent protocol and is designed specifically to share large files. It can be used to synchronize data between two or more computers, so it’s an alternative that can send files to multiple devices or multiple participants at the same time.
Resilio Sync is free for individual users, but for households, if they want to exchange data between themselves, they have to pay – we’re talking about a one-off cost of $100. In return, Resilio Sync does not limit the amount of data that can be shared, but there is one major limitation: the way BitTorrent works, data synchronization only works if at least one computer with all the information is always on. However, it is easier to connect not only a desktop PC or mobile device but also a NAS.
Mediafire
Mediafire is also a free and paid service that could be very good – except that the free version is full of annoying captchas and ads. It’s a shame because the 10 GB base and the 40 GB extra storage you can get with the offers don’t sound bad, and the 4 GB file transfer limit is also more than most people will ever need. Uploading works not only from the app but also directly from the browser, making Mediafire a convenient way to use.
In exchange for the free version’s ads, the 1 TB expansion (and the 20 GB sending limit) doesn’t cost much, and the €4 price is worth it not only for the extra storage space but also for the freedom from ads (and captchas). A useful feature, often missing on other platforms, is the one-time link, which, as the name suggests, is used when you want the recipient to download the file you send them only once.
Filemail
This service is mainly recommended for people who really want to send large files. And only if you don’t mind paying a monthly fee. The free version offers 30 GB of storage space, with a 5 GB sending limit and seven-day availability.
What’s more interesting is the Business version: for a monthly fee of $15, you get 1 TB of storage space, no limit on the size of files you can send, and free configurable availability. In addition, you get password protection, a unique domain, address list management, etc.
The Business version has the added advantage of being able to integrate Filemail into a website.
Send Anywhere
The free version of Send Anywhere is very generous, allowing you to send files up to 10 GB. But that’s not the main reason why it’s interesting, it’s also because it can be integrated into almost any system: in addition to downloadable versions for Windows and iOS, there’s a mobile app, a Chrome extension, a Linux version, a version for Amazon Kindle and two additional modules for those who want to use the file-sharing functionality in Outlook mailbox or on a website created in WordPress.
SendGB
With this service, you get 5 GB of free storage, but you can use almost all of it with one file: the sending limit is 4 GB. If you need more space, you can get 1 TB of cloud storage for €50 per year, plus a 20 GB file transfer limit.
You can also create a direct link to the download, or have the system automatically send the path to one or more predefined email addresses. You can send files to 20 people at a time in the free version and 50 people in the paid version.
A useful feature is tracking, which automatically ensures that uploaded data is deleted after all recipients have finished downloading.
Which file-sharing site is your favorite? Let us know below!