How to Actually Send Large Files Online (Without the Usual Headaches)

You've got a 2 GB video file sitting on your desktop. Or a folder of 400 RAW photos. Or a ZIP of project files that clocks in at 800 MB. You need to get it to someone else, and email just laughed at you.

We've all been there. You hit send, wait 30 seconds, and get that lovely bounce message: "attachment exceeds the maximum size." Gmail caps at 25 MB. Outlook is the same. And no, compressing the file to 24.9 MB doesn't count as a real solution.

So what do you actually do?

The options (and why most of them are annoying)

Email — Dead on arrival for anything over 25 MB. Not worth discussing further.

WeTransfer — The go-to for years, and it does work. But the free tier caps at 2 GB, and here's the kicker: your link expires after 7 days. If the recipient doesn't download it by then, you're re-uploading and re-sending. Annoying if you're sharing something that needs to stay accessible.

Google Drive — Upload the file, click "Share", fiddle with permissions, copy the link, send it. Sounds fine until the recipient replies "it says I need to request access." Then you're back in the sharing settings trying to figure out why "Anyone with the link" wasn't actually selected. Also, they need a Google account for some sharing modes, which not everyone has (or wants to sign into).

Dropbox — Similar story to Drive. You upload, generate a share link, send it. But Dropbox really wants the other person to install Dropbox too. The download page has multiple buttons and the actual "just download the file" option isn't always obvious. I've had clients message me asking which button to press.

FTP — If you know what FTP is, you already know it's overkill for sending a file to someone. If you don't know what it is, that tells you everything you need to know.

USB stick in the post — Genuinely faster for very large files if the person is in the same country. Not joking. But also not practical for most situations.

What actually works in 2026

After trying all of the above over the years, here's what I actually want from a file sharing method:

• No account needed for the recipient. I don't want to make someone sign up for anything just to download a file I'm sending them.
• The link doesn't expire. I send project files to clients who sometimes don't look at them for two weeks. A 7-day expiry means I'm doing the work twice.
• It's fast. Not "uploading to my home NAS and serving from my domestic broadband" fast. Actually fast — CDN, edge servers, the whole thing.
• Works on phones. People check their email on mobile. If the download link doesn't work on a phone, I'll hear about it.
• I can tell if they downloaded it. Especially for client work. "Did you get the files?" is a message I'd rather not send.

How I send large files now

The workflow I've settled on is dead simple:

1. Upload the file (video, ZIP, photo archive — whatever it is) 2. Get a link 3. Paste the link in an email, Slack message, or WhatsApp 4. Done

The recipient clicks the link and downloads the file. No account, no app, no confusion about which button to click. It just downloads.

I use Hostupa for this because it ticks every box above. The link is permanent, it's served from a CDN so downloads are fast regardless of where the other person is, and I can see in my dashboard whether they actually downloaded it. If the file is sensitive, I can stick a password on it.

It's not the only option — there are others that work similarly. But it's the one that stopped me from thinking about file sharing as a problem. Upload, get link, send link. That's it.

A few things worth knowing

Compress video before uploading if quality doesn't matter. A 4K video straight from your camera might be 8 GB. If the person just needs to review the content (not do colour grading), compress it to 1080p first. Handbrake is free and takes a few minutes. You'll upload faster and they'll download faster.

ZIP folders of photos instead of sending them one by one. If you've got 200 product photos to share, don't upload them individually. ZIP the folder first. One upload, one link, one download. Much cleaner than sending 200 separate links or making someone click "download" 200 times.

Password-protect anything confidential. If you're sending contracts, financials, or unreleased creative work, adding a password takes two seconds and means a leaked link is worthless without the password.

Keep the link around for reuse. If you regularly share the same type of file with different people (like a media kit, a branding package, or a software installer), upload it once and reuse the same link. When you need to update it, re-upload to the same project and the URL stays the same.

Tell the recipient what to expect. Instead of sending a bare link, write "Here's the video files (1.4 GB) — click the link to download." People are more likely to click a link when they know what's at the other end of it.

If you want to try this workflow, Hostupa has a free tier that covers files up to 50 MB. For bigger stuff you'll need a paid plan, but it starts at a few quid a month which is less than the WeTransfer premium plan.