Transferring a large file isn't always easy. When e-mail won't work (which it often doesn't for files of any heft), you can burn to a disc or send a file piecemeal, but neither option provides much value to the person who just needs your file now, and simply.
Online file-sharing services can transfer large files for you. To use these services, you upload your file to them, and then your recipient gets a link to the download. The file itself doesn't go through e-mail, just the link to it. Let's look at a few different products that perform this service.
Box.net
Box.net may be billed as a service designed for companies, but it's equally useful for consumers.
Overall, Box is extremely easy to use and its interface is second to none. After signing up for an account, you can upload a file of up to 1GB in size, add comments to it to provide some context for other users, and save it to a single folder or multiple folders on the site. Once the file is uploaded, you can e-mail or IM a Box link to others, who can then download that file to their local machine. You can even create a shared workspace and work together online. Whether it was uploading the file or using that shared workspace, Box provided me with an outstanding experience.
One of Box's best features is its customizable widget. After heading to its widgets page, you can upload files, customize the look and feel of your widget, and share it with others by embedding it in your Web site or blog. You can keep adding files until you hit the 1GB limit. It's a really neat feature and a great way to share files that you don't mind keeping unsecured. I created my widget (right) in under a minute.
Unfortunately, Box only provides 1GB of storage a 25MB upload limit for free. If you need more than that, the company charges $7.95 for 5GB of storage and 1GB uploads or $15 per user per month for businesses that want 15GB of storage and 1GB uploads.
Dropbox
Dropbox is similar to Box because it allows you to upload files and share those with others. But in order for them to see the files, the service requires you to add them as authorized users.
Once you sign up for Dropbox, you can immediately start uploading files and creating separate folders to control access to documents. Once a folder is created, you can share it with others by inputting their e-mail addresses into the sharing box on Dropbox. The service then sends those users a link to sign up and start sharing access to the folder.
Dropbox makes it easy to upload files.
(Credit: Dropbox)Uploading files in Dropbox is simple and generally zippy. If you want to create a photo gallery that can be viewed by anyone, the site boasts a Photos section where you can upload pictures. And although it works as advertised, it doesn't compare to nicer galleries like those you'll find on Flickr.
One of the most compelling reasons to use Dropbox is its offline functionality. When you sign up, you can download the company's desktop client, which allows you to drag-and-drop files into it. Once complete, it syncs with your online account in the background while you work. It's an outstanding feature.
Dropbox also offers an attractive pricing model. Although it doesn't provide as many collaboration features as Box, it offers more capacity for free. In fact, you can upload up to 5GB for free. It costs $9.99 per month or $99 per year to have 53GB of storage.
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File delivery service YouSendIt announced Thursday that it has released a plug-in (download) for Microsoft Office 2003 and 2007 that will allow users to send any file from Word, Excel, or PowerPoint to recipients through the company's service.
Based on my testing, the plug-in, which requires registration to download, works quite well. After surfing over to the company's plug-in page, which is already populated with other plug-ins for iPhoto, Outlook, Photoshop, and others, I downloaded the file in seconds.
Once installed, the plug-in embeds itself in Microsoft Office. On my version of Office 2007, I found YouSendIt's plug-in added under the "Send to" menu, allowing me to send a file through the YouSendIt service without requiring me to surf to the company's page.
As soon as I was ready to send a file and clicked the "YouSendIt" button, the company's Express software (download) popped-up immediately, asking me to input my username and password. Once complete, the process mimics YouSendIt's online version: I input the e-mail address of the recipient, decided how long the document should be preserved for, and sent it. A progress bar displays how much time is left before the document is sent.
There's not much to the YouSendIt plug-in. In essence, it provides you with another alternative to send files. And although I usually send documents and spreadsheets through Office's "Send to email" feature, YouSendIt's plug-in came in handy when I needed to send a large PowerPoint presentation that the recipient's e-mail couldn't handle.
Just like the online service, the recipient receives an e-mail containing a link to download the file, which saves them some valuable in-box space.
Overall, the process to send files was quick and I didn't recognize any lag time between starting the process and completing the file transfer. That said, YouSendIt capped the file size limit at 2GB, which might upset those who need to send huge PowerPoint presentations. But for most us, 2GB is more than enough.
YouSendIt's Office plug-in isn't necessarily a "must have" tool, since I found that more often than not, sending e-mail through Word or Excel is sufficient. But because there are larger files that sometimes crop up, it doesn't hurt to have it installed just in case.
The Office plug-in is available now on YouSendIt's site as a free download after registration. You can also download it from CNET by following this link.
I've found that I frequently use the large file transfer service YouSendIt to send big files, videos, scans, and pictures. And I've taken to recommending the service to others when I hear about a problem getting a file from one place to another. That's rare--usually the Web services I like the most are a bit too rickety to recommend to people with real lives and jobs.
But one thing about YouSendIt has always bugged me: the need to go to the browser to upload a file for transfer. I hate browser uploaders. Fortunately, the company just released a desktop app, YouSendIt Express, that lets you drag files from your system into it, from which it will then upload the file to the transfer service. And if your connection drops, it will resume the upload when it can. It's available for PC and Mac.
The company also has a plug-in for Outlook, which makes perfect sense. Except I have yet to meet an Outlook plug-in that doesn't somehow degrade the mail application itself. So, I haven't tried it and I have no intention to.
I do wish YouSendIt's pricing structure for occasional users was more reasonable. The free service is very limited, but what do you want for nothing? The problem is that the lowest-cost paid account is $9.99 a month. I'd like to see a per-use fee or a much cheaper monthly fee. For occasional use, $120 a year is just too steep.
But it's still a great app.
YouSendIt is a Webware 100 finalist. See all the products in its category.
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