INTERNET ARTICLES

Sending Large Files

When it comes to sending large files online, there are solutions out there that can help you ...

There may come a time when you need send a large file over the Internet that your email service just can’t handle. Sending large files is a pain, especially when your email spends quite a bit of time trying to attach it before finally tell you that it is just too big. If you travel for business, this can be a huge problem, as you may need to be sending large files all the time. Now that videos are becoming more popular online, you may have a hard time sending these out as well. Photos and videos are getting larger and longer, thanks to advances in digital photography, and sometimes, there is no way to share these without displaying them publicly online. For privacy reasons, many people don’t like to do this.

When you are sending large files, you have to find a source other than your email to do so. There are many sites that will help you with this, and some are geared towards business use. Others, you will find, can be used to send just about anything. Some will save the information on their server for a period of time, allowing the recipient a few days to a week to pick up the file on their own computer. After that time period, the file then disappears.

You do have a lot of choices today for sending large files, though at one time, this was unheard of online. People are beginning to rely on the Internet more and more for personal and business communications, and the Internet is trying to keep up. When choosing a site for sending large files, you have a lot to consider. Price is a factor, as well as the size of the files that particular site can handle. If your file is too large, there may be no one who can handle the information. You may then have to chop it up into smaller pieces and send it that way.

If you find that you are sending large files online quite often for business purposes, your company may be able to come up with another solution. They may subscribe to such a service, or perhaps find a way to get around the problem all together. For the time being, know there are ways of sending large files that are relatively painless, and these sites are available for business or personal reasons if you find yourself in a pinch.

Here are some companies you may want to research for sending large files:

• Dropload
• LeapFILE
• Megaupload
• mytempdir.com
• Streamload MediaMax
• SendThisfile
• TransferBigFiles.com
• YouSendIt
• zUpload

Another method of sending large files, which is quite obvious, is to burn the file onto a CD and post via mail. This method of delivery is not online, of course, but if your recipient can wait a couple of days, it is a very practical method of sending large files to others.

There is one other method, but it requires you to have web space on a webhosting server, basic HTML / Web Design skills and knowledge of uploading files via FTP (File Transfer Protocol) to your server and an FTP application (I prefer to use CuteFTP, but you can download some FTP software applications for free, simply by doing a search for "FREE FTP Software" on the search engines!), or some kind of file management utility (e.g. "File Manager" if you are hosting your site on a server that uses cPanel)

Essentially all you do then is:

1. Compress the file using a compression utility like Winzip.
2. Upload the file to your server via FTP. (Tip: for security purposes, create and save the file to a subfolder)
3. Create a simple web page and add a hyperlink to your "zipped" file. For example, if your domain name is "yourdomainname.com", your subfolder is called "subfolder" and your file is called "insertfilenamehere.zip", then your download URL would be http://www.yourdomainname.com/subfolder/insertfilenamehere.zip
4. Forward the above download URL to your client or the person your are sending large files to.
5. All they have to do is click on the link, save the file to their hard drive, then extract it using winzip or another similar utility and ... voilá! your large file has been transmitted!

Here's another useful tip for uploading large files to your server if you have cPanel installed and use Windows XP:

Instead of using FTP software (it can take a long time to transfer large files), do the following:

1. Open the folder that contains the contents you want to upload to your server.
2. Select all the files (Control + A)
3. Right-click mouse button, select one of the highlighted folders (select a folder, not a file for this step) and choose "Send To > Compressed (zipped) Folder option on the right-click menu. (Use this in-built feature, NOT WINZIP or another Zip program)
4. If a dialog box pops up asking you if you want to make this feature your default file compressing utility, click "No"
5. All the folder contents including the folder itself will be compressed into a Zip file.
6. Login to your CPanel hosting account and select "File Manager".
7. Navigate through the file directory and drill down until you find the folder you want to install the contents into, then select Upload Files
8. Locate the zipped folder in your hard drive containing the files you want to upload to your server using the "Browse" button, then click "Upload" when ready.
9. Once the file has been uploaded, select the folder and click "Extract Contents" the zipped file will uncompress inside your server.
10. Delete the "zipped" folder.

You should find that this significantly reduces your file transfer time.

For more information about email marketing, see the "resources" section of this website, or go to articles about email marketing.