1. Generally speaking, if you want to send or upload files without dealing with upload limits, you’ll need to use a cloud storage service for large files.
Uploading large, high-resolution photos and video is one of the longest-standing problems for end users. Most uploads are limited to a few megabytes, and even then in some cases, the limit is just 1 gigabyte (GB). Many people don’t want to take the step of uploading their entire digital life onto the cloud, which requires significant bandwidth usage.
The best way to avoid this problem is to use a service that lets you upload files with reasonable limits — and so that you don’t have to worry about limits all that often.
Most services have trials, but most don’t do anything fancy until you use it for more than a day or two. If you need any kind of trial period, make sure it isn’t too short; if it too short then you risk losing your trial data.
While many sites offer free trials, they often come with limitations: some only allow you to upload one file at a time (and while they are small files, this isn’t ideal), or they restrict your uploads to only certain types of files (which is what we see on uploadbin).
Uploadbin allows 100MB uploads and unlimited downloads without an annual fee ($0/month). Uploadbot lets unlimited downloads starting at $0/month ($0/month forever) and also has an annual plan ($5/month forever). Both hosts also offer free trials for file hosting: Uploadbot offers up to 5 gigabytes for free for 90 days before having to pay $10/month thereafter (until year end). Uploadbin allows 500MB before having to pay $25/year ($20/year forever) or $60/year (lifetime).
Both hosts offer storage plans: Uploadbot offers storage tiers $5 each month ($10 for 6 months), $30 per month with unlimited storage (lifetime), or $100 monthly with unlimited storage and 10 GB transfer tier ($100 lifetime), while UploadBin offers 3GB monthly storage plus 100 GB transfer tier ($15 lifetime). Both hosts also offer paying plans: UploadBot has a paid version with unlimited storage; UploadBin has a paid version with 10 GB storage. Neither side offers both kinds of plans simultaneously.
If you find either site useful as a tool for uploading large files as well as downloading them, then we recommend using them both instead of subscribing directly to their services. It will save you money in the long run by not
2. Most transfer services have caps on file size, even on paid plans.
The most common reason for putting a limit on file size is that the transfer service has a cap on the number of files you can upload in a 24 hour window. This limits your options when you want to share large files, such that you can’t use services like Google Drive (or Dropbox) and make use of the “share large file” button in their site. Fortunately, there are workarounds to these limitations.
If you really want to share large files, there are two things you can do:
• Make use of HTTP Archive . HTTP Archive works with any protocol and is free to use for non-profit purposes. It allows you to upload very large files (up to 1GB each) without any limitations or limits on file size. The only additional thing you need is an account and a domain name.
• Use FTP instead . If you have an FTP account, it’s not too hard to set up transfers from any other web service — from Google Drive or Dropbox or OneDrive or Box — into your own personal folder on the FTP account of your choice. You just need an FTP client for Windows or OS X, which will allow you to copy files into your own personal folder on the server’s hostname.
It should be noted that if you encrypt your transfer data using SSH keys with your SFTP account, even if they’re stored in plain text in plain text rather than encrypted as per usual SFTP settings, they can be viewed using any SFTP client through their public key encryption feature (they won’t be visible by default). But if they are encrypted and stored as SSH keys this won’t be possible either (but it wouldn’t affect the data sent over SFTP).
3. However, there are a few exceptions. For example, Amazon Prime members can send files up to 5GB in size for free.
Amazon Prime and other cloud storage services offer free file transfers at a large scale, but there are some caveats. For example, Amazon’s free file transfer is limited to 5GB in size, whereas the competitor Dropbox offers a larger limit of 50GB. Dropbox also has limits on the number of concurrent uploads and downloads; however, this can be circumvented by using AWS’s own cloud storage service instead (AWS CloudFront), which is more flexible in terms of size limitations.
The most obvious reason for using cloud storage services like Amazon’s is that you don’t have to worry about uploading files to your own personal device as often. This also means that you don’t have to worry about warranties or third-party data loss due to accidental deletion.
We do not recommend using such services for storing sensitive data as they typically have strict no-backup policies (with one notable exception: Google Drive, which while strictly speaking this isn’t true).
If you use Dropbox regularly, then consider their pricing model and try out their free plan — it might serve you well enough for storing files on a regular basis over the long term if you want to avoid uploading them all the time.
4. Similarly, Google Drive offers users 15GB of free storage space
Google Drive offers users 15GB of free storage space.
Even if you’re a freelancer, or just someone who has a large number of files on a shared drive and doesn’t need to keep them all in one place, it can still be useful to have some free storage space.
