File Sharing: How to share large files WITHOUT using email

As hard drive space grows more and more inexpensive, the frequency of wanting to share large documents and files has been increasing almost as quickly. Email servers have not always been able to keep up with that storage space which can result in emails being rejected due to the size of attached files. To solve this problem, it is suggested that users find other ways to share such files. Some suggestions of alternate methods are listed below.

Physical storage

   Portable hard drives or flash/USB drives are still a good option for backing up and sharing files. 

G Suite (formally Google Apps)

The campus has an instance of G Suite that is available to all UW students, faculty and staff. It is an ideal way to share documents, spreadsheets and other files while you work on them with others. There is information on sharing on G Suite and many other features on DoIT's Helpdesk website.

Box

All UW students and faculty have access to Box, a free web-based storage system that allows links to be sent so that others can download files directly from the web. Permissions can be changed to allow only users in a certain group or everyone to access given documents.

FTP

File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is a no-frills way to get files from computer to computer over the internet or a local network, regardless of the computer platform or operating system. The exchange consists of two entities: a server and a client, which can do a number of operations when connected.