Looking through the detailed descriptions of the top 10 best file sharing sites with advantages and disadvantages to easily select out one for daily file sharing. You will also learn how to use a free cloud file managing and sharing tool to securely share cloud files and folders with others with clear steps.
With the endless impact of COVID-19, you may be working or studying from home, then there's nothing more important than sharing your files remotely with your team members or professors. Thanks to the development of cloud-based technologies, it is now very easy for you to share files on Google Drive or other cloud storage services rather than through hard drives or USB.
Whether you work for a company, as a freelancer, study at college, or just want to share photos or videos of funny pets with friends, family, or business partners, file-sharing platforms are something everyone is familiar with. In other words, free online cloud file storage, backup, sync, and sharing services now play a huge role in allowing you to collaborate smoothly with others, no matter where you work or study.
When choosing the best free online file-sharing sites or software, you should consider factors such as security, usability, features, price, and limitations on storage and file-sharing services. For the enterprise, you may need a more secure, more powerful, more flexible solution. By taking into account free storage, advanced features, security, price, and more, we've tested selected the listed top 10 best file-sharing platforms for you to choose from.
Google Drive is a very popular and well-known cloud storage option. It offers a lot of choices for file sharing and team collaboration and is available to most people. Also, most of you already use things linked to Google and other of its products and services. So, applying Google Drive for sharing files and folders online is such a logical step.
When you think of Google Drive, you mostly think of its large free storage. But Google Drive also offers some even better options for you to subscribe to. Google Drive gives you a lot of helpful features through one Google account since it connects everything about collaboration to Google Drive and Google Workspace interface.
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Microsoft OneDrive (SkyDrive) is one of the most popular file-sharing services for desktop and mobile devices. It can be used to store data in the cloud, share files and synchronize files on Android, iOS, Windows, and macOS operating systems.
Since Microsoft links many of its core business products to OneDrive, OneDrive has become an important part of the Windows operating system. Individual users can back up data and create shared folders across the organization easily with OneDrive and OneDrive for Business.
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Dropbox offers simple and reliable file storing and file-sharing services that provide enhanced collaboration features to users. But Dropbox is more expensive and less integrated than cloud-based services such as Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive, and Apple iCloud.
Dropbox adds productive and collaborative features with a new shared space for team collaboration in recent years. Now you can create Microsoft and Google office suites easily in Dropbox.
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pCloud offers a user-friendly and delightful interface that clearly shows you where everything is and what all the features are designed for. pCloud has file-sharing services, file management, file backup, file versioning, security, and digital asset management features. And it offers 30-day trash so that you will have a month to access your deleted files before permanently deleting them.
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Box is specially designed for users from IT departments and design work. It is one of the major file-sharing services similar to Dropbox. Box allows seamless data transfer from PC/Mac to it. You can invite members from your team to collaborate, join any conversation, or edit files simultaneously for better results. What’s more, the maximum size of a file should not exceed 5 GB.
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In addition to the enterprise storage service known as AWS S3 (Amazon S3), Amazon also has a consumer-based cloud storage software called Amazon (Cloud) Drive. Amazon Drive allows users to store multimedia data (photos, videos, and documents) in the cloud and access data from anywhere at any time. For mobile users, you can set up an auto-save feature to automatically back up photos and videos from devices.
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iCloud allows users to store documents, photos, and music remotely. Data like messages, contacts, and app info from iOS and macOS devices will be backed up to iCloud wirelessly. And photos and videos on an iPhone or iPad can also be automatically synced across devices.
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iDrive is more suitable for businesses that have the demand to back up large amounts of data securely. It provides a continuous file sync feature and an easy-to-use interface. It also supports sharing files through email and social media like Facebook and Twitter. You can access up to 30 previous versions of all backups in your account when you need them.
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MediaFire can be used in a browser or on a mobile device as a small but growing cloud-based storage platform. MediaFire aims to provide a simplified file-sharing solution for users who don't need fancy features.
As a special file-sharing service, MediaFire emphasizes the privacy of the file-sharing services. For example, you can create a one-time link that will expire right after downloading data from the link. You can also set a password for the uploaded information. Without a password, the uploaded data are inaccessible.
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SugarSync is intuitive to use and is unique in syncing folders wherever they are on your devices. You can specify any folder from the local drive to sync to the cloud. To sync folders, you just need to right-click on them (after installing the SugarSync desktop application).
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All the above file-sharing sites can help you both store data in clouds and share files easily without barriers. You can choose according to your specific needs or refer to the detailed comparison between different file-sharing software like iCloud vs OneDrive vs Google Drive at the right. βΊ
Besides, no matter which service you choose to share files with others, you can only share from that cloud and to the user of that cloud in most cases. So, how to use different file-sharing services at the same time and share files from different clouds in the most convenient way for free? Well, please keep reading to find out the simple solution given below.
Tip: Remember that you should only share data that you create or have no copyright restrictions.
To share files and folders most efficiently from all your clouds to cloud users and non-cloud users securely, you just need a professional multiple cloud storage manager called MultCloud.
As one of the best web-based cloud file managers in the cloud management industry, MultCloud can do great in helping you manage and use all your clouds in a single and easy-to-use interface safely for free.
Here we will show you how to securely share Dropbox folder with MultCloud by taking the simple steps given below.
Step 1. Open MultCloud on the browser and sign up for free. You can use your Facebook/Google account to sign up or click “Try without signing up” to try with a temp account.
Step 2. Choose the Dropbox icon and allow MultCloud to access your Dropbox.
Step 3. Open Dropbox in MultCloud, tick the folder you want to share, and click “Share” in the feature bar above.
Step 4. Tick “Private Share” in the pop-up window, copy the link and send it with the password to the receiver by yourself or by the given social media.
Tip: The password is randomly set up by MultCloud, you can change to the one that is easier to remember.
Step 5. The receiver can view and download the folder from the shared link with the password. He can also create a MultCloud account and transfer the folder to his cloud.
Tip: If you share a cloud folder with others, you can turn on the “Allow to Upload” button in the “My shares” list to easily realize file requests across clouds.
After reading through the 10 top free file sharing services and one smart file sharing solution, now you are most equipped to make full use of the document sharing platforms you like.
In addition, since MultCloud is a multifunctional online file sharing and managing service, you not only can use MultCloud for sharing files and folders from the cloud, but also use MultCloud to seamlessly sync, backup, and transfer files between cloud storage services with one click by Cloud Sync, Cloud Backup, Cloud Transfer, and Team Transfer.