Can’t send an email because the attachment is too big? Often, when you send large files to recipients, especially in a professional context, the size of emails you send can be limited. Typical email mailboxes let you send your files of up to 25 MB (that’s the limit at Gandi). Which can become a problem, particularly when sending work files like PowerPoint presentations, Adobe files, etc.
To send such large files, you’ll most likely need to turn to file transfer websites, like WeTransfer. These sites enable you to send and receive files up to several gigabytes in size, hosting them for a short period of them, during which the recipient of the file can download them. For example, the file transfer giant WeTransfer has more than 87 million active visitors per month, from 190 different countries.
Wait a minute! Before you click on that transfer button on the WeTransfer page, let’s talk about the different files transfer services, their benefits, and their performances.
What’s WeTransfer?
WeTranfer is the most well-known file transfer website
WeTransfer is a website for transferring large files (that is, larger than 10 MB). It’s one of the most well-known in the market and lets you transfer files up to 2GB in size without having to create an account. The WeTransfer interface is intuitive, efficient, and easy to use. In just a few minutes, you can send a large file to the email address of your choice for free, after confirming your email address to avoid spam.
Flaws and limitations of WeTranfer
However, WeTransfer also has some weaknesses. A user does not have any choice as to where their data is hosted when they use WeTransfer to send a file.
We would also note that the site doesn’t provide any solid guarantee when it comes to the privacy and security of data cloud storage. As a result, using WeTransfer services may not be appropriate for all professional uses.
What alternatives are there to WeTransfer ?
WeTransfer isn’t the only player in the file transfer service, though. To fill the gaps in what we described above, we’ll be showing you some alternatives to WeTransfer, that will also provide a good, if not better, user experience.
SwissTransfer: the Swiss are also in the business of file transfers
WeTransfer’s Switzerland-based competitor, SwissTransfer, has been on the market since 2019. They offer a comparable service and have their datacenters in Switzerland, a country where data privacy laws are more strict. Even the goal of SwissTransfer from the beginning was to guarantee a more secure large file transfer alternative that respects the privacy of its users.
SwissTransfer also promises real ecological engagement, going beyond carbon neutrality to double their carbon offset (200% of their carbon footprint is offset). This offset takes the form of forest reserve in the Swiss canton of Jura through financial contributions directly to the reserve.
The Swiss business also provides an integrated Firefox and Google Chrome extension that makes it that much easier to use. Lastly, users are virtually unlimited in terms of the number of files they can send: SwissTransfer allows any single user to send up to 500 files per day with a file size limit of 50 GB.
TransferNow: France’s file transfer challenger
Another WeTransfer competitor is the French TransferNow. This French business, founded in 2013, has already achieved more than 150 million downloads in 150 different countries.
TransferNow provides a website where you can transfer large files up to 5 GB in size for free. Where this French competitor really stands out is in the transparency and access it provides to the user’s data management. The business has datacenters in Asia, the United States, and France, and the user has the choice of which country to host their data in.
The site also offers either to send an email containing the link to download the document, or directly provide the link available for 7 days that you can then send to the recipient. What makes this platform an even stronger choice are the many positive reviews from its users.
Nextcloud, the open source file sharing solution
Beyond using it to transfer files, you might consider implementing a more permanent solution to make file sharing easier: a shared storage solution. In this sense, Nextcloud is the ideal free, open-source option. When you use Nextcloud, you get secure Cloud hosting for storing and sending large files of all types (photo, video, documents, notes, calendars, etc.). But the real bonus Nextcloud offers is that it’s a self-hosted application, meaning you are free to host your instance where you want, which further guarantees you keep control of your data. In contrast, to file transfer tools, you are not limited in the maximum size of files you transfer. The limit is determined by the maximum capacity of your hosting instance, extendable up to 1 TB. In addition, by choosing Gandi to host your Nextcloud instance, you also get a simplified one-click installation, 50 GB of storage space included for your files (extendable up to 1 TB) in datacenters located in France.
Learn more about Nextcloud at Gandi now!
So what should you choose to send your large files?
Both of these two alternatives have their advantages and different features. SwissTransfer offers more flexibility in terms of the file sizes you can send. And they have strong data protection, security, and data privacy practices. However, TransferNow offers greater choice in terms of where the datacenters where your data will be stored are located. And TransferNow also provides you with different options for how to deliver the link to your file to your recipients, either in a group or on a shared channel. The choices available for transfering large files are many.
With that in mind, now you have all the info to decide how to send your files to third parties.
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