Send large files free
5 GB per file, no account, 7-day window · Updated May 2026
Send up to 5 GB without paying, without an account, and without a desktop app to install.
- 5 GB per file, multipart upload via the browser
- No signup, no email needed to send
- 7-day auto-expiry, with a one-click revoke link if you change your mind
- Free, no ads on the download page
5 GB is roughly 90 minutes of 1080p H.264 video at a typical bitrate, about 110 Canon R5 RAW photos at 45 MB each, or a Figma export plus a folder of source PSDs for a small site. It's the practical ceiling for things people actually try to send by email and fail at. sto.care lets you send a single file up to that size, in your browser, without making an account on either end. The link is good for 7 days, or until you revoke it from the confirmation email, whichever comes first.
No paid tier. No upgrade prompt. No ad on the recipient's download page. Every limit is listed below in plain language, including the ones we don't love (rate limits, blocked extensions, no resume across browser sessions). Skipping past those would make the page faster to read and less useful, so we're leaving them in.
The numbersEvery limit, on one screen
How it worksDirect-to-S3, no proxy in the middle
When you drop a file on the upload zone, the browser asks our API for a presigned upload URL and then sends the bytes straight to AWS S3 using multipart upload. The file is split into chunks, uploaded in parallel, and reassembled by S3 once the last part lands. Our servers don't see the file contents at all, which is why we can run the free tier without a bandwidth budget that would force us to throttle you.
The practical effect: upload speed is bounded by your connection and the S3 region, not by an artificial cap on the free tier. On a 100 Mbps residential line, a full 5 GB file takes about 7 minutes. On gigabit fibre, closer to 45 seconds. The progress bar reports real S3 throughput, not a smoothed fake-progress animation that pretends to know what's happening.
Why the limits existWhat "free" actually costs to run
Most free file-transfer tools cap their free tier because outbound S3 (or equivalent) bandwidth is the largest variable cost in the business. WeTransfer's free plan, after the December 2024 restructuring, dropped to 3 GB per transfer and 10 transfers per 30 days with ad-supported download pages. Smash keeps the file size uncapped but throttles free-tier downloads after a few gigabytes, then upsells you on faster speeds. SwissTransfer goes the other way (50 GB free, no throttle), but the link hard-expires after 30 days and there's no way to revoke it earlier.
sto.care's answer is a smaller per-file ceiling (5 GB), a per-IP rate limit (10 uploads per hour), and a fixed 7-day window with on-demand revoke. Those three numbers add up to predictable bandwidth, which is what lets us run without a paid tier or ad space on the download page. If you need 50 GB transfers, sto.care isn't the right service. Use SwissTransfer or Filemail. We aren't trying to be everything.
What can stop a transferThe four real failure modes
Connection drops account for most failed uploads on large files. The S3 multipart protocol retries individual parts automatically, so a Wi-Fi blip at part 47 of 100 doesn't kill the whole upload. What does kill it is closing the browser tab, since we don't persist upload state across sessions. If your laptop's about to sleep mid-upload, keep the tab in front and turn off auto-sleep first.
The 10-transfers-per-hour rate limit is per IP. Households behind one router share that bucket, which matters if you and a flatmate both happen to be sending wedding videos on the same evening. The cap resets on a sliding window, so you don't have to wait until the top of the hour.
Blocked extensions: .exe, .sh, .bat, .ps1, .msi, .cmd, .com, .scr. The block list exists because services that pass executables end up on Gmail's blocked-domain list, and once that happens nothing else gets through either. If you need to send code, zip it. If you're distributing software, use a real release channel (GitHub Releases, your own CDN). A transfer service is the wrong tool for that job regardless of who's offering it.
The fourth failure mode is corporate networks on the recipient's end. Some enterprise firewalls block unfamiliar file-sharing domains by default. There's nothing any free transfer service can do about that from its own side. If the recipient's on a locked-down corporate VPN, ask them which services their security team actually allows.
What "free" means hereNo paid tier, no upsell, no ads
Most "free" transfer services are actually free-for-now-while-we-funnel-you-into-paying. WeTransfer Pro starts at $12/month for higher caps, and the free product has gradually shrunk to make the paid one look better. Smash, SwissTransfer, and pCloud all have paid tiers that the free flow nudges you toward. There's nothing wrong with that model, but it's not what we run.
sto.care has no paid tier to upgrade to. The download page the recipient sees has no ads, no "Try Pro free for 30 days" banner, no email-capture for a newsletter. The upload page tracks Plausible analytics for traffic patterns and that's the entire surveillance footprint. We can't promise this never changes (no privacy policy that pretends otherwise is worth trusting), but if the day comes that we add a paid tier, the free product won't shrink to justify it.
Storage and securityWhere the file actually sits
Files live in an S3 bucket in AWS's eu-west-1 region (Ireland) for the seven days they exist. The bucket has server-side encryption enabled (AES-256, SSE-S3), so the bytes on disk are encrypted at rest. The browser uploads over TLS, and the recipient downloads over TLS. We don't claim end-to-end encryption, because we don't do it: we hold the keys, and AWS's S3 service handles the encryption. That's TLS plus server-side encryption, not marketing language that overstates what server-side encryption actually does.
If you need true zero-knowledge encryption (where even we can't read the file), the right tools are Wormhole, Tresorit Send, or Internxt Send. We compared them all in our guide to sending large files for free and pointed at them where they're a better fit.
FAQCommon questions
Is sto.care actually free, or is there a catch?
Free with no paid tier. There's nothing to upgrade to, no premium plan, no "Pro" account. The catch, if you want to call it one, is the 5 GB per-file ceiling and the 10-transfer-per-hour rate limit per IP. Both exist to keep the bandwidth bill predictable. If you need to send a 50 GB project, sto.care isn't the right tool. SwissTransfer or Filemail will fit better.
How do you stop the link from being abused?
Two ways. Files auto-delete from S3 after 7 days, and the upload confirmation email contains a one-click revoke link that you can use any time before the auto-expiry. If you forget to revoke, the link still dies on its own. There's no "share forever" toggle to leave on by accident.
What's the actual upload speed?
Whatever your connection can do. The browser uploads directly to S3 using multipart upload, so there's no proxy server in the middle to throttle you. On a 100 Mbps line a 5 GB file takes about 7 minutes; on gigabit fibre it's closer to 45 seconds. We don't artificially cap free transfers the way some services do.
Why are .exe and .sh files blocked?
Because file-transfer services that allow executables get used to deliver malware, then get blocked by Gmail and corporate firewalls, then become useless to everyone else. Blocking the executable extensions keeps the domain reputation clean so legitimate transfers actually arrive. If you need to send code, zip it first.
What happens if my upload drops mid-way?
On a flaky connection, the browser retries the failed parts of the multipart upload rather than restarting the whole file. If the tab closes, the upload stops. We don't currently support resuming a transfer across browser sessions; that's a real limit, not a small one. For unreliable connections on huge files, a desktop tool like Filemail's app handles resumes better.
Can the recipient download without an account?
Yes. The recipient gets an email with a download link. They click it, the file streams from S3, done. No signup prompt, no app install, no "verify your identity" interstitial. Recipients on enterprise networks sometimes hit corporate policies that block unfamiliar domains, which isn't something any free transfer service can solve from its end.
5 GB. No account. 7 days, or sooner if you change your mind.
UPLOAD A FILE →Want the longer version? Read our full guide to sending large files for free with 22 services reviewed side by side. Comparing alternatives directly? See sto.care vs WeTransfer and sto.care vs Google Drive.