How to share large files or lots of files with WeTransfer

The festive season is rife with many a photo opportunity. For the hospitality and events sector, it is full steam ahead! Delivering back-to-back Christmas and New Year’s Eve parties, they’ll have photographers on hand to get the shots that showcase their offerings. The marketing departments of businesses, organisations and schools, will be looking to capture all the festive action to share on their social media channels, giving insight into their culture.

From the office to the home, cameras continue to play an important role. Families all over will be snapping away, creating mementos of cherished moments: the sheer excitement of kids opening presents from Santa in the early hours of Christmas Day, or the family dog enjoying a post-dinner walk.

It doesn’t take long for the photo count to rack up! The thing is, everyone wants to see them! Sharing a large number of photos or high resolution images can be tricky. Email platforms only allow you to attach files with a cumulative size of approximately 20 - 25 MB and below. If your files take up significantly more room than that, you would still be sending emails come June!

So, how can you share lots of files quickly without compromising on the quality? There are multiple ways you can do this. You can compress your files or use file sharing platforms such as Google Drive or Dropbox. However, today we want to focus on one particular platform: WeTransfer.

What is WeTransfer?

WeTransfer is a cloud-based service which allows users to send large files over the internet without compromising on their quality. It is incredibly easy to use. The best bit about it is that you can share files WITHOUT having to create an account and it is free! However, with the free version there is a file size limit of 2GB. If you need to share even larger files, you can subscribe to their paid version — WeTransfer Pro — which increases the file size limit to 20GB.

How to share files via WeTransfer

1. Go to wetransfer.com/
2. Click the “I agree” button in the transfer upload window on the left-hand side of the screen.
3. Click the + icon button to “Add files” in the transfer upload window.
4. Select the files you want to share.
5. Fill in the fields:
6. Email to: Your recipient’s email address.
7. Your email: Self explanatory — your own email address.
8. Title: A subject title for your files for e.g. “Christmas Party Photos.”
9. Message: Add a message with any instructions or a description pertaining to  the files you are sending.
10. Hit the “Transfer” button.

The file transfer window will now ask you to “Verify your email.”

1. Open up a new tab.
2. Go to your email inbox — the one you entered in prior.
3. Open the email from WeTransfer.
4. Copy the verification code.
5. Return to the WeTransfer tab.
6. Enter the verification code in the field provided.
7. Click the “Verify” button.

Once you have completed the above steps to set up your file transfer, WeTransfer will send you two email updates in due course:

• Confirmation — that your files have successfully been sent to the recipient(s).
• Notification — that the files you shared have been downloaded by the recipient(s).

This is handy as you can keep track of the total number of downloads and who has access to the files.

There is the option to create a shareable link as opposed to sending a link to the files via email. To opt into this, in the transfer upload window:

1. Click the kebab icon (three vertically stacked dots). 
2. Select the “Create link” option.
3. Follow the steps as above.

Please note that when you use the shareable link option, visibility features are no longer available. Someone could get hold of the link, download the files and you wouldn’t have a clue. The email method gives you more control over who has access to your files. However, there are other ways to increase the security of your file transfer.

How secure is WeTransfer?

According to the WeTransfer website, the transfer of your files is “encrypted at every step” and “encrypted within the world’s safest data centers.” They also adhere to “the highest possible security standards” and do not sell data to third parties.

Beyond that, there are further options to add even more layers of protection to your file transfer:

Protect your files with passwords

With the WeTransfer Pro version, you can add an extra layer of security by password protecting your files. Any recipients of your file share link, will require a password to gain access to the files contained within.

1. Click the padlock icon in the transfer upload window.
2. Enter a password into the field provided. 
3. Share the password with your recipient by secure means — password manager or in person — so they can enter it in and access the files.

*Please note*

• Passwords are case sensitive. 
• You are responsible for remembering your password and passing them on to your recipient. WeTransfer cannot retrieve your password for you if you forget it.

Control access to files with expiration dates

You can limit the lifespan of the shareable link. Once it has done its job, it will cease to exist.

1. Click the calendar icon in the transfer upload window.
2. Select an expiration time frame from the list available.

WeTransfer will inform the recipient of your file share that there is a deadline to download the files by. If they don’t, they won’t have access to them.

Once you have received the notification email that your files have been downloaded by the recipient, you can change the expiration date on the file transfer to prevent further downloads from happening. That way, only those who need the files have them.