Transferring large files
Listen to this week's Tips & Tricks segment as broadcasted on JQ99.
Computer files today are huge. Ever put a video together and try to send it to family and friends? Often these large files aren’t even allowed to be sent by your email provider (most email providers don’t allow attachments larger than 10MB). Or if they do go through it gets bounced back because it exceeds the recipient’s mailbox size.
Trying to send these large files can be a real headache. While the recipient may have the ability for you to send your file via FTP, this is probably not very likely. Even so, using an FTP application is not always very easy for most people. Sure, you could burn the files to a DVD, but this is time consuming and may not work within the time constraints you are under.
As an alternative there are services that make it easy to transfer files up to their servers and allows your recipients to download the files. One company that offers this service that is recommend is called YouSendIt. There are a number of reasons why sending large files this way is beneficial.
The primary reason of course is file size. You can send and receive files that are up to 2GB with YouSendIt.
There is tracking capabilities. Once you have uploaded a file, you can track when the files have been downloaded.
Set expiration dates or limit how many times the files can be downloaded.
You can even password protect your files and get return receipts.
There are a number of applications and plug-ins you can use. For example, there is a desktop application that allows you to quickly drag and drop your files onto for easy sending. There are also plug-ins that allow you to send your files right from PhotoShop, Outlook, Acrobat, and more.
YouSendIt has a free service available if you don’t need to send regular files. The free version has some limitations though including a 100MB file size maximum. It you plan on sending files regularly they have plans that start at $9.95 a month. If you need to send a larger than 100MB, but don’t want to pay for a monthly subscription, they have a pay per use option too.