Have you ever wanted to send a file that was too big for e-mail and then had to burn a CD and send it via snail mail? There are many free services that allow you to upload and download very large (up to 1 GB) files.
I regularly use an ftp (file transport protocol) site to upload files for the trade magazine I edit. However, sometimes getting photos with large file sizes from third parties requires me to walk them through a multi-step process over the phone.
This week, I picked up a new client for whom I am doing some media relations work. One of the first orders of business was to get some text and a large 9 MB file to a trade editor that has agreed to run a story in the next issue.
I remembered that there were some sites that offered this service, and I did a little search and I found a great post that appeared on Robin Good’s Master New Media site last year that did a good job of dissecting some of these services. Most still seem to be in business.
I chose to use YouSendIt because it was free, easy and required no password for the sender or the receiver. Did I mention that it was FREE?
Tips for Using YouSendIt
Here is the trick. I didn’t want to send it directly to the editor untested, so I sent it to myself first and I am glad I did. The html branding in the e-mail slowed down my e-mail client in a major way.
I stripped out all of the branding (which you get anyway when they go to the site) and forwarded the e-mail on to the editor. It worked like a charm.
You can only upload one file at a time, another drawback, but if you need to upload more, send them to yourself and then cut and paste, as described above, and put all your links in one e-mail to send to the final destination.
Some more caveats, you can only send files as large as 1 GB, the files only are stored for 7 days and the file can only be downloaded 25 times. So, this is not a solution for sharing files on your blog (for instance), though I admit, the idea occurred to me. YouSendIt has some paid service options, but you don’t get much more it (in my opinion).
