File Sharing via the internet - Is there a Pain-Free Way ?

 

Many of us who still use a pc will, sooner or later, find they need to share larger files with others. If these are more than ca 10MB in size, this can present problems.

The traditional, and probably still the most widely used, method of transferring smaller files to someone else is via an email attachment.

This has two associated problems…the first (and perhaps best known because of the trouble it can cause) is that all mail systems prohibit attachments above a certain size, and this limit can be as little as 5 MB or even less. Even a medium-sized Word document with illustrations or images within it can easily exceed this limit, and audio and video files will almost always be larger than this, unless they are just a few minutes long.  

This results in 'offending' mail messages being rejected and not reaching their destination, something which is not always obvious to the sender.

The other, and less widely appreciated, issue is that emails are eminently ‘hackable’ (see recent blog on the subject for more details), and thus confidential material such as personal details are at risk of being intercepted. These should never be sent by email without additional encryption (you can do this by downloading a stand-alone Excel workbook (Encoder Lite.xlsm) which adds simple encryption to any text offline. There is also an HTML version which you can run online, or download for offline use via this link.)

There are a number of file-sharing methods available, but beware of cloud-based 'free' apps which are offered widely for use online or downloading. These can, and sometimes do, appropriate and sell-on any data you consign to the cloud, with potentially catastrophic results if the files you send contain key personal data.

Is there a better and safer way of sharing larger files ?

Most of us with PCs, and everyone with an Android phone, will at some time have signed up for a Google account. Not everyone with a Google account appreciates that this comes with 15GB of free web storage space in the form of a Google ‘Drive’ (GDrive), which is therefore often left virtually unused and therefore an obvious option for transferring larger files via the cloud. You can access the webspace provided directly using the Google 'Drive' pc app and upload/download files to & from it quite easily.

But how easy is it to use a GDrive to exchange files between correspondents ? 

The answer is…actually quite easy, once the system is properly set up. All that is necessary, once this has been done, is for both  correspondent and recipient to have access to a Google account and log into it whenever they want to share files (this doesn't of course need to be the same account !). 

As you might expect, there is a bit of setting up to do before you can exchange files routinely.... 

This involves creating a shared directory within your own GDrive and assigning the necessary security permissions to your recipient(s). It needs to be done by the owner of the 'master' GDrive where the shared directory and the files to be exchanged will reside. Once the new directory has been created, the owner then creates a link to the shared directory which can be used whenever access is required by the recipient(s). The link automatically takes anyone in posession of it to the Google ‘Drive’ app, and invites them to log in to their Google account if they’ve not already done so. They can the access the shared directory via the link, and view, upload or download files as required. Using this system, you can share files amongst a group of individuals, not just one on one.

The security of the system is good - apart from the GDrive owner, only those assigned the appropriate permissions and having the link to the shared directory are able to access it. If you're concerned about Google themselves having access to your files, ask yourself the question: why would they want to look preferentially at your data amongst the huge volume of other data already stored in their cloud servers ? In theory they could 'snoop' on your material, but are very unlikely to do so, and it's probably reasonable to proceed on the 'safety in numbers' principle, provided you adopt the principle of not sharing anything confidential without extra encryption (as mentioned earlier, if you wish to do this, you can download software to add simple encryption to any piece of text from my downloads page).

I’d recommend anyone looking for a relatively painless and safe file-sharing experience to try doing it this way….you and your correspondents probably already have GDrives available, particularly if you have an Android phone or tablet – why not put them to good use ?

To explain how to set up a suitable system and start exchanging files, I’ve published a short step-by-step guide which I hope will be helpful. You can download it here.

Happy file sharing……

First published 20.3.25; Revised 15.5.26

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