Hands on: Transfer files faster with FTP

Here’s the thing: you’ve got an urgent file you need to send to a friend or colleague who’s too far away to get to in person. How would you do it? If the file is up to a few megabytes in size, email is probably the easiest solution, but what if it’s much bigger?

Most ISPs or email providers place limits on the sizes of messages that can be sent or received. Typical email inboxes may only accommodate 20MB of data in total, or even less if you use a budget provider.

If you have a premium account, or host your own email, you can increase the size of your inbox, but you’ll still need a server at the other end that can send a big file.

Luckily there are alternative methods of sending large amounts of data from one computer to another over the internet. Before going any further, however, first check if the file itself can be compressed.

Assuming your compressed file is still too big to email, what next? Instant messaging clients are a possibility, as most allow you to transfer files directly from one computer to another.

I’ve successfully transferred files well over 20MB using MSN Messenger and it can work quite well, although people at both ends need to be present at the start to initiate and accept the transfer.

Space share
For larger files, or when the recipient isn’t present to accept the transfer, try uploading the file using FTP to your own webspace (or any shared online storage), then provide the recipient with an address so the file can be downloaded.

I regularly use this technique when delivering work to clients that includes multiple high-resolution photographs. So far so good, but none of the files I’ve personally needed to transfer in the past measured much more than 100MB.

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