WeTransfer alternative: why I recommend SwissTransfer for large files

The WeTransfer alternative I recommend is SwissTransfer. It is free, it needs no account, it sends up to 50 GB in a single transfer and it keeps your files online for up to 30 days. It is run by Infomaniak, a Swiss host based in Geneva, and your files are stored in Switzerland.

My verdict fits in one line: SwissTransfer is way better than WeTransfer. WeTransfer is not a bad service, and it still suits teams that pay for it, but its free plan has shrunk so much that one video or one folder of full-resolution photos can use up a whole month’s allowance.

This comparison puts the two side by side, explains what changed at WeTransfer and what it means for your clients’ files, and ends with a checklist for sending large files safely. SwissTransfer belongs with the other small business tools I recommend: it does one job, and it costs nothing.

SwissTransfer vs WeTransfer at a glance

A file transfer service stores your files for a few days and gives you a download link, so you can send far more than an email attachment allows. Here is how the two compare at the time of writing (October 2026).

SwissTransfer also lets you add a password and cap the number of downloads (up to 250) for free. The details, plan by plan, are on Infomaniak’s help page about SwissTransfer limits. WeTransfer counts its free allowance over a rolling 30 days and adjusts its limits from time to time, so check WeTransfer’s help page on plan limits before you count on the figures above.

Why I recommend SwissTransfer as a WeTransfer alternative

I discovered Infomaniak the same way I came to OVH and Hostinger: clients were already there. I do not recommend those two to small business owners. Infomaniak, I do. My own habits are with Spaceship, so I use it less than I could, but SwissTransfer is the quickest way to see why I rate it. For the rest of the range, from email to hosting, see my Infomaniak review.

On the points that matter when you send files for work, SwissTransfer wins:

• The free limit is in another league. One SwissTransfer can carry 50 GB; WeTransfer’s free plan allows 3 GB in total over 30 days. A single SwissTransfer holds more than a year of WeTransfer’s free allowance.
• Your recipient has time. Files can stay online for up to 30 days, against 3 days on WeTransfer’s free plan. Send a file on a Friday to a client who is away for the week, and on WeTransfer it has gone before they are back.
• There is no account and nothing to cancel. You open the site, add your files, confirm your email address and get a link: no sign-up, no subscription to remember.
• A password and a download limit come free, which matters for contracts, payslips or anything with personal data in it.
• Your files stay in Switzerland, with a company that sells hosting, email and storage to businesses.

Switching here is not the shiny-object chase I warn small business owners about. There is nothing to learn, nothing to pay and nothing to move: the next time you need to send a big file, open SwissTransfer instead of WeTransfer and judge for yourself.

What WeTransfer’s free plan allows in 2026

For years, WeTransfer’s free version meant 2 GB per transfer, kept for a week. It has been cut back since. At the time of writing, the free plan allows 10 transfers or 3 GB in total over any 30 days, whichever comes first, and the files expire after 3 days.

That covers a signed contract, a logo pack or a short presentation. It does not cover video footage, a photo shoot or the images for a new website, and three days is short if your recipient is on holiday or simply busy that week.

The paid plans, Starter, Ultimate and Teams (plus Enterprise for large organisations), raise those limits to different degrees. Prices depend on your country and on monthly or yearly billing, so I am not quoting them here: compare them on the WeTransfer plans page.

If your team pays for WeTransfer and it works for you, I would not move everyone for the sake of moving. The case for SwissTransfer is strongest if you are on WeTransfer’s free plan, or if you were about to pay only to get past its limits.

Privacy: where your files go and what the terms allow

SwissTransfer keeps your files in Switzerland

Infomaniak stores SwissTransfer files in Switzerland. The European Commission recognises Switzerland as giving personal data an adequate level of protection, as its list of adequacy decisions shows, and the UK recognises Switzerland as adequate too. For a business in the UK or France, that makes a Swiss service one of the simpler choices under the UK GDPR and the EU GDPR: your files are not leaving for a country without that status. Infomaniak also says it does not use SwissTransfer data for anything else, such as training AI or targeting adverts. For US tools, my guide to the Data Privacy Framework explains how to check a provider.

WeTransfer and the July 2025 terms row

In July 2025, WeTransfer announced new terms of service, due to apply from 8 August. Their licence clause covered using the files people send to run and improve the service, including to improve machine-learning models used for content moderation. Illustrators, authors and other creative users read it as permission to train AI on their work, and said so publicly.

On 15 July 2025, WeTransfer rewrote the clause without any mention of machine learning. It said that it does not use machine learning or any form of AI to process the content people share, and that it does not sell content or data to third parties.

The new clause is clearer, and the episode holds a lesson that goes beyond WeTransfer: the terms of a free tool can change, and most people only notice when someone else reads them. Before you send client files through any service, SwissTransfer included, read the part of its terms that says what it may do with your files.

Client files and the GDPR

Whichever service you use, a download link is only as private as the people who hold it. If a file contains personal data about your clients or your staff, such as payslips, ID documents or health information, ask the same questions as when you put client data into an AI assistant: send only what the recipient needs, protect it with a password and choose the shortest expiry that works.

How to send a large file with SwissTransfer

Setting up a transfer takes a couple of minutes; the upload itself depends on the size of your files and your connection. Your recipient needs nothing but the link.

1. Go to swisstransfer.com. There is no account to create.
2. Add your files, up to 50 GB in total. If you are sending a whole folder, zip it first: your recipient gets one file, with the folders inside intact.
3. Choose how to send: a link that you share yourself, or an email that SwissTransfer sends to your recipients once the upload has finished. Either way, SwissTransfer asks for your own email address and, the first time you use it on a browser or device, sends you a code to confirm it.
4. In the transfer settings, choose how long the files stay online (1 to 30 days), the maximum number of downloads (up to 250) and a password.
5. Send, then pass the password on by text message or phone.
6. If you chose 30 days, watch your inbox around day 12, for the reason below.

When WeTransfer, or another tool, is the better choice

SwissTransfer is the right tool for sending files once. It is not the right tool for everything, and I would rather tell you now than after you have changed your habits.

• Your team already pays for WeTransfer and relies on it every day. Moving everyone is a project of its own: list what you actually use, check what SwissTransfer does for free, then decide.
• You share the same files for months. A transfer link expires by design. For a library of photos, contracts or brand files that people come back to, use cloud storage with a shared folder, such as Infomaniak’s kDrive, Google Drive or OneDrive.
• You need to send more than 50 GB in one go. Split the files across several transfers, or share a folder from cloud storage.
• The file is small. Below your email provider’s attachment limit, a plain attachment is simpler: Gmail accepts up to 25 MB per email and turns anything bigger into a Google Drive link. Sending from a professional email address on your own domain also makes any link you send look more trustworthy.
• It is a first email to a prospect. Never put a transfer link in a cold email. A download link from a sender nobody knows looks like phishing, and I never put any link in a cold email anyway, for deliverability reasons I explain in my article on links in cold emails.

Before you send: a short checklist

1. Check the size. Under your email provider’s attachment limit, attach the file; up to 50 GB, use SwissTransfer; beyond that, split it or share a folder.
2. Name the files clearly, with the project, the date and the version, so the recipient knows what they are opening.
3. Pick the shortest expiry that works, and a download limit that matches the number of people who need the files.
4. Add a password to anything personal or confidential, and send it by text message or phone.
5. Check the recipient’s address, and tell them a link is on its way: from whom, and what it contains.
6. Keep your own copy of everything you send: a transfer service is not a backup.
7. Send originals. Messaging apps often compress photos, and a website needs them at full quality.

That last point matters most on a website project. When I build a site, I need your photos (if you have none, I generate or buy them), and a transfer link is the easiest way to send a whole folder of them at full resolution. My web design process shows where they come in, from the first call to launch.