WeTransfer alternatives
A WeTransfer alternative that doesn't expire.
Because a transfer is an event, and hosting is a place.
WeTransfer links expire on the free and starter tiers because expiry is what a transfer product is: a send, a countdown, a page that closes. Its top tier can hold a link open for as long as you like, so this is not an argument about what WeTransfer is unable to do. It is an argument about the shape of the thing you hand a client, and about what happens the eighth month after delivery.
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Updated September 2026
The countdown is not a bug
A transfer is an event;
hosting is a place.
People search for a WeTransfer alternative that does not expire as though expiry were an oversight somebody forgot to fix. It is not. A transfer product exists to move a file from one person to another and then to be finished. The countdown is the finish. Everything about the product follows from it: the window you send inside, the page that closes, the email that says the link is no longer available.
Start with the part most pages like this get wrong. WeTransfer Ultimate can keep transfers active for as long as you like, and custom expiration sits in its published feature list next to password protection, branded pages and access control. If you are already paying for Ultimate, nobody can honestly sell you an escape from expiry, because you do not have an expiry problem. Read the last section of this page instead; the argument for moving is a different one and it is smaller.
The countdown bites on the tiers most people actually use. Free and Starter links can be kept online for up to three days, and that availability is counted from the exact moment the transfer is sent, not from the moment the client opens the email. A film delivered on a Friday afternoon to a marketing manager who is away until Tuesday has already gone. There is also a second meter that catches people out before the first one does: the free plan allows up to 10 transfers, or 3 GB in total, in any 30-day rolling window, and Starter allows up to 10 transfers or 300 GB in the same window.
3 days
Free and Starter link life
Counted from the exact moment the transfer is sent, not from when it is opened
3 GB
Free plan, per 30 days
Up to 10 transfers or 3 GB in total in any 30-day rolling window
0 GB
Bandwidth metered here
Storage is the only meter, on every plan including free
Side by side
Two products that end,
and one that is an address.
The middle column is the fair comparison for a studio with a budget. The left column is what most people are actually using when they type this search.
WeTransfer figures from its help center and product pages, fetched 3 September 2026. No WeTransfer price is shown because none could be verified in the same currency on the same day; the caps and windows above are what actually decide the question. Plans today are Free, Starter, Ultimate, Teams and Enterprise; Pro and Premium are retired.
Where WeTransfer is right
Three complaints that
are not real.
If you are going to move, move for the correct reason. Three of the usual attacks on WeTransfer are false, and a page that repeats them is not worth trusting on anything else.
It does not touch your file
WeTransfer states that no compression or quality loss is applied, and that it does not re-encode, compress or alter your files at any stage. Whatever you dragged in is what lands. Quality is not the differentiator here, and anyone telling you otherwise is guessing.
It does play video
A recipient can play MP4 and MOV files directly in the browser with no download, no account and no software. The idea that WeTransfer is a download-only pipe is out of date. It previews video, and for a rough cut sent once that is often all a client needs.
It is not stingy about who watches
The free plan supports up to 10 email recipients per transfer, and there is no limit on how many people can use a download link once it exists. Password protection is available on every plan, including free, which is more than several paid hosts manage.
When you should stay on WeTransfer
What an address gives you
The one link
that survives the project.
A delivery page here is not a send with a longer fuse. It is a location. The distinction shows up in the four situations below, all of which happen months after the invoice is paid.
The client comes back in month eight
A new marketing manager inherits the account and asks for the film. The link in the old email thread still works, because nothing was sent, and nothing counted down. No re-upload, no apologetic message, no digging through an archive drive to reconstruct a delivery.
It streams the file, not a copy of it
The player streams the exact bytes uploaded, with no transcode anywhere. A 150 Mbps export plays at 150 Mbps. Browser-decodable codecs stream, which means H.264, HEVC and AV1, and 8K plays when the viewer's hardware can decode it.
The master sits behind the same link
The page a client watches can also carry the file they take away, so the ProRes 422 or DNxHR deliverable is one click from the version they just approved. Browsers do not decode those, so they are hosted for download rather than streamed, but they live at the same address.
It costs the same at one play or ten thousand
No bandwidth is metered on any plan, including free. An agency that embeds the film on a campaign page and pulls it twenty thousand times does not change the bill. Storage is the only meter, so the number you budget is the number of gigabytes you keep online.
There is a second-order effect that only appears once deliveries stop expiring. When a link is permanent, the delivery stops being a message and becomes a record. You can point a new client at four finished films without exporting anything. You can answer a licensing question by opening the page rather than by searching for the drive. The reason a studio ends up with an archive folder full of re-sent transfers is that the transfer product had no memory, so the studio had to be the memory.
None of this is free of trade-offs. A permanent address means you are now the one deciding what stays online and what comes down, and storage is the meter that makes that decision cost something. That is the deal on offer: you pay for what you keep, and you never pay for who watches it.
How the switch works
A different last mile,
not a bigger send.
Keep WeTransfer for sends
Do not migrate anything. Transfers that were genuinely one-time were fine as transfers. The only thing moving is the last mile of a finished job, which is the part clients keep asking you to re-send.
Upload the export you want people to watch
A high-bitrate H.264 or HEVC export is what streams, because that is what browsers decode. Camera RAW is never the file you upload; finish to HEVC or ProRes first. The bytes that arrive are the bytes that play.
Attach the deliverables to the same page
The ProRes or DNxHR master, the subtitle file, the vertical cut. They ride with the page rather than in a separate transfer, so approving a version and collecting the files are the same visit.
Send the address once, and stop re-sending
The link does not expire, so the follow-up email six months later is a reply rather than a fresh upload. Storage is what you are paying for: 100 GB on Lite at $9 a month, 500 GB on Pro at $25.
Questions
Frequently asked
Does WeTransfer have a plan where the link does not expire?
Yes. WeTransfer Ultimate can keep transfers active for as long as you like, and custom expiration is named in its feature list. Free and Starter links can be kept online for up to three days, counted from the exact moment the transfer is sent. So the honest framing is not that WeTransfer cannot hold a link open. It is that on a transfer product the open link is a setting you extend, and on a host it is the default state of an address.
How long does a free WeTransfer link last?
Up to three days, and the clock starts at the exact moment the transfer is sent rather than when the recipient first opens it. The free plan is also capped at up to 10 transfers or 3 GB in total in any 30-day rolling window, so for a working filmmaker the window usually bites before the three days do.
Does WeTransfer compress or re-encode my video?
No, and this is worth stating plainly because it is often claimed otherwise. WeTransfer says no compression or quality loss is applied, and that it does not re-encode, compress or alter your files at any stage. File fidelity is not a reason to leave WeTransfer. We stream the exact bytes uploaded with no transcode anywhere, which is the same promise applied to playback rather than to delivery.
Can a client watch the file without downloading it?
On WeTransfer, yes for MP4 and MOV: recipients can play those directly with no download, no account and no software. Here, every browser-decodable file streams as the exact bytes uploaded, so H.264, HEVC and AV1 play, and 8K plays when the viewer's own hardware decodes it. ProRes 422, ProRes 4444 and DNxHR are hosted for download rather than streamed, because browsers do not decode them.
What happens if fifty people download the same master?
Nothing appears on the bill. No bandwidth is metered here on any plan, including free, and storage is the only meter. WeTransfer states there is no limit on how many people can use a download link either, so the two behave the same on the pull side. The difference is on the send side, where Free and Starter are metered by transfers and gigabytes inside a rolling 30-day window.
Does WeTransfer use uploaded files to train AI?
Its current terms of service for non-US users, dated 3 August 2026, are silent on AI training; the 2025 clause is gone. So this is not a reason to switch, and we will not pretend it is. Our own position is a clause in the Terms: files are never sold and never used to train AI, with a 30-day notice rule before that clause can change.
Should I keep using WeTransfer for anything?
Yes. For a one-time send to somebody you will never speak to again, a transfer is the right shape and it is simpler than asking them to open an account. Keep it for the stills a journalist needs today, for the audio stem a mix engineer asked for once, for the folder a printer wants. Move the deliverables clients come back to, because those are not sends.
A delivery page with no countdown
Storage is the only meter. Free 1 GB to try, Lite $9 a month or $90 a year for 100 GB, Pro $25 or $250 for 500 GB. No bandwidth is metered on any plan, and there is no platform branding on any plan.
Sources
- 1.WeTransfer Help Center: plan limits for Free, Starter, Ultimate, Teams and Enterprise (fetched 3 September 2026)
- 2.WeTransfer Help Center: transfer availability and how long links stay online (fetched 3 September 2026)
- 3.WeTransfer: what the free plan includes (recipients, download links, passwords, no compression) (fetched 3 September 2026)
- 4.WeTransfer: file transfer with preview, video playback in the browser (fetched 3 September 2026)
- 5.WeTransfer Terms of Service (non-US), dated 3 August 2026 (fetched 3 September 2026)
- 6.uncompressed.io pricing: plans, storage and the bandwidth position (fetched 3 September 2026)
- 7.uncompressed.io Terms: storage is the only meter, and the no-AI-training clause (fetched 3 September 2026)