The use of video is taking off. It’s so easy these days to create high-quality videos that almost everyone has a snippet or two of significant events or people in their lives, or beautiful destinations to which they have been. But sharing videos can be an issue. Most email servers (both outgoing and incoming) limit attachment sizes to a maximum of 10MB, and in some cases even less than that. Yahoo and Gmail are among the exclusions, but they still restrict things to 20MB and 25MB respectively. If you’re attempting to send someone a large video file, a huge batch of pictures, or anything else that goes off the limit, the email won’t send. So, how is it possible to send large video files over Internet? Below is a list of the best ways to solve this problem.
Fortunately, several free file transfer services exist, from one-off upload services to cloud storage providers.
1. Dropbox
Dropbox is perhaps the most popular provider of file sharing services, a friend or client you know is probably already using it.
You must register for a membership to use Dropbox, although this is completely free. In addition to a web-based program, there is a desktop program that you can install and access your files on your PC.
Dropbox even does well not to put an expiration date on files you upload: you can keep files as long as you want. Plus, there’s an unlimited file size, so you can even share an entire movie with your friends or clients without worrying about performance.
2. MediaFire
One of the much older approaches to the service: MediaFire offers you 10GB of storage space for free and fixes transfers to 200MB. If you spend $2.49 per month, you get long-term storage, free advertising for sharing, and a FileDrop uploader that lets individuals send things to your account. You can also edit documents.
3. WeTransfer
WeTransfer is a great looking website where you can exchange large video files of up to 2GB per transfer – as often as you want! This way, there are none of those last-minute email problems! You can email large video files or take a download link from the website; and with no registration required, it’s a piece of cake.
4. SugarSync
SugarSync is in some ways identical to Dropbox, with the additional ability to back up any folder to your cloud storage. From a sharing perspective, there are no size limits to the size of your account (starting at 60GB for the low-cost $7.49 per month option), and there are enterprise and group collaboration options available.
5. Google Drive
Google Drive is one of the most popular cloud storage services. It offers up to 5 GB of free storage space and allows you to store and send large files such as videos and pictures with just a few clicks. If you already have a Google Account, nothing can beat the simplicity of Google Drive.
Our next recommendation on tools for sending large files to other people is Box. Personal accounts for sending files are free with up to 5GB of storage space, and allow you to send files of any size without restrictions.
Box also has useful integrations with applications such as Salesforce and Google Apps. There’s even a free trial available for business accounts, with the added bonus of more storage capacity for your design files and better control over permissions for various user activities.
What really helps Box stand out from the crowd are the customers who use their business accounts: their client list includes bigwigs from Stanford University, Procter & Gamble and even LinkedIn and Skype.
7. Adobe SendNow
If you belong to the design industry, huge files are an important part of life: Huge high-resolution images, videos, magazine PDFs, audio files, the works! Adobe offers SendNow for $19.95 per year, and in addition to direct file exchange, you get your money’s worth through file tracking and a handy PDF conversion feature.
8. Infinit
The key thing that distinguishes Infinit from other providers is the use of peer-to-peer technology instead of cloud servers. This means that it is both highly secure and “almost 23 times faster” than the competition, according to the French team of eight developers and designers behind it.
Even the user interface is a breeze, and there are no limits on the amount of files you can share or their volume. If you or your client’s Internet connection goes down, the service simply pauses until the connection is restored – you don’t have to start the process from scratch. And if you’re too impatient to wait for the entire media file to arrive, you can even start playback before the file is completely sent.
Compress Large Files and Send it via Email
Do you have a video or other file that is too large to email as an attachment? Then compress it! File compression not only minimizes everything you need to send, but the transfer process will be faster no matter what method you use – be it FTP, email or uploading to cloud storage. Most operating systems have built-in compression tools, so creating a .zip file takes just a few clicks. Learn how to send large video files via email using compression:
Mac
Get the file you need to compress
Command-click or two-finger click on the file
Then select “Compress…”
Windows
Get the file you need to compress
Right click the file and select “Send To”
Then choose “Compressed Folder”.
Send Large Video Files Using FTP
If you do not want to compress your files before transferring them, the best alternative is to use FTP (File Transfer Protocol). This protocol is designed for transferring large files, and all you need is an appropriate FTP client to use it. Without getting deep into the subject, I would like to at least make it easier for you by suggesting some FTP application programs for each operating system.
Cyberduck is a free and open-source FTP client program for Mac OS X with a cheesy UI and vast of hi-tech features. Supported protocols include SFTP, FTP, Amazon S3, WebDAV, and more.
Windows
WinSCP, short for Windows Secure Copy, is a free and open-source FTP client that’s fully developed and lightweight. In addition to typical FTP transfers, it even supports SCP and SFTP (secure transfers).
Linux
FileZilla is recommended over other FTP programs for Linux, however it still works with Windows and Mac. As with most Linux-supportive software programs, FileZilla is fully free, open-source, and enables various sorts of transfer protocols.
Send Large Videos Through YouTube
A very simple way to share a large video file is to post it on YouTube, get the link, and then email it to your friends. YouTube can host almost any type of video clip, and anyone can create a YouTube channel – all you need is a Google login. Just take a quick look at YouTube.com to see how it works.
Posting a video on YouTube does not mean that everyone can see it. There are 3 different privacy settings for YouTube videos: Private, Unlisted and Public. The former means that you must give someone permission to watch your video, “Unlisted” means that it will be visible to anyone with the direct video URL, but cannot be displayed in lists or searches, and “Public” means that it will be visible to anyone with an Internet connection.
You could even use to exhibit a video in the same way. But such are the quirks of the Facebook privacy settings it is better to take on that anything you post is viewable to anyone who needs to view it.
You could even use Facebook to display a video in the same way. But the quirks of Facebook privacy settings mean it might be a little more difficult to keep a video private while still allowing it to be viewed by the necessary people.
Send Large Video Files Via Whatsapp And iMessage
Nowadays it is more than likely that you have recorded your video on a tablet or smartphone. So you may not need to or even be able to transfer it to a desktop or notebook computer before you share it. Fortunately, you’re not tied to text messages or email. It’s best to use services like Apple’s iMessage or Whatsapp. These allow you to send multimedia messages often in a similar way to MMS messages, but using web rather than mobile data.
This allows you to exchange large video files without wiping out your phone contract. The good news is that the person you’re transferring the file to can then save it on their handheld device, so you can get the file transferred. But it will have been heavily compressed, so don’t expect great quality.
