Ditch Email Attachments - Here's An Easier Way To Share Files

Here's a classic bit of tech frustration: you're trying to send an important document to a coworker over email, only for the attachment to be too big, formatted in a way your email client doesn't like, or inexplicably scattered to the winds by a random error. Despite email being a central component of our lives, it simply isn't the best way to send files to another user due to potential errors and security risks of uploading unencrypted files. Rather than relying on email for all your data transit purposes, you'd have a much easier time using a secure upload portal or a file sync service.

Using dedicated services to store and circulate your files ensures they stay safe from bad actors and email problems. Additionally, sending files in this manner is a tech habit that will save you time, not to mention save you and your coworkers, friends, or family members the trouble of having to dig through email inboxes to find an old or misplaced attachment, as the file will always be in the same link you left it.

Instead of trying to cram a bunch of variably-sized files onto a single email and hoping it goes through, it's much easier to stash them all in a secure spot and share an access link.

Secure upload portal services like SendMeSafe, Sharefile, and Tresorit allow you to quickly upload files and documents and create individualized links that you can safely send to whoever you want. As long as that person has the link or the page bookmarked, they can return and access the file whenever they need, instead of fishing for it in their inbox. This approach is particularly valuable for large companies circulating internal documents that need extra sharing precautions, as the individualized access links create records of who accesses the files and when. The only real hitch with secure upload portals is that they can't be used to facilitate collaborative work. If multiple people need to access a document and make changes in real time, it can't handle that.

In such a case, a file sync service would work just as well. DropBox, Google Drive, and OneDrive store your files on cloud servers and apply end-to-end encryption in the process, after which you can share access via a link. Anyone with the necessary permissions can make changes to a document and have them visible to other users instantly, perfect for remote workers and collaborative projects. These services are free, though business-level subscriptions give access to more storage space if you need to share large files. Just be careful, as you shouldn't put some files in cloud storage, like sensitive personal documents.