WeTransfer file requests, and the Google Drive alternative

A WeTransfer file request is a link that lets people upload files to you, available on every plan including the free one. Two things separate it from a plain upload link: everyone who uploads has to verify an email address first, and the files you receive expire — after three days on Free and Starter, up to thirty on Ultimate — unless you download them.

How to create a file request in WeTransfer

1. 01Sign in to WeTransfer and open the file request option from the transfer panel.
2. 02Write the message senders will see — this is where you say what you are asking for, since there is nowhere else to specify it.
3. 03Send the request by email, or copy the link and share it yourself.
4. 04Uploads arrive in your Received tab, and you get an email notification per transfer.

What the person sending files sees

They open the link, see your message and an upload area, and are asked to verify their email address before the transfer completes. That verification is the part worth understanding, because it is not a formality: it means a round trip through their inbox, on whatever device they happen to be holding, before the file reaches you. It is a smaller barrier than creating an account, and a larger one than nothing at all — and it is the step where a client who was uploading from a phone on a train stops uploading.

It also decides what you learn about the sender. WeTransfer identifies people by that verified address and does not let you require anything else, so there are no custom fields — no name, no company, no document type, no reference number. What you get is an email address and whatever the files happen to be called.

The expiry rule, which catches people out

This is the difference that matters most and gets noticed last. WeTransfer is a transfer service, not storage: a received transfer expires after three days on the Free and Starter plans, and can be extended up to thirty days on Ultimate or Teams. The request link itself does not expire — it keeps working until you delete it — but the files that arrive through it do.

In practice that means every submission carries a deadline for you as well as for the sender. Miss it and the file is gone, and you are asking a client to send the same document a second time, which is exactly the conversation the request was supposed to prevent. Collecting from twenty people over a fortnight means twenty separate download windows to keep track of, and the files that survive that process end up wherever you saved them rather than anywhere organised.

WeTransfer file request limits worth knowing

• Received transfers expire — three days on Free and Starter, up to thirty on Ultimate and Teams. Downloading them in time is your job.
• Every sender must verify an email address before uploading. There is no setting that turns it off.
• No custom fields. Senders are identified by their verified address and nothing else, so context has to arrive in the filename or not at all.
• No password protection on the request itself. Whoever holds the link can upload to it.
• Received transfers count against your own storage quota, the same as anything you send.
• The free plan is capped at 10 transfers or 3 GB in any 30-day window, which a single busy week of client uploads can clear.

What WeTransfer does well

The brand does a lot of work here, and that is a real advantage rather than a dismissible one: a WeTransfer link is recognised by people who have never used any other tool, which removes the "is this safe to click" hesitation that costs you files. The interface is genuinely good, large transfers are its whole engineering focus, and for a one-off exchange with someone you will not need to chase, it is hard to beat. If what you need is one file, once, from one person, this page is not going to argue with you.

Where it stops fitting

The moment collection becomes ongoing, the model works against you. WeTransfer is built around a transfer that completes and then disappears; client intake is built around records you keep. Every request therefore ends in the same manual sequence — open the notification, download before the expiry, then upload the files into Drive where the rest of the work lives, and file them by hand because nothing arrived labelled. Doing that once is nothing. Doing it for every client, every week, is a standing tax, and it is paid in the busiest weeks rather than the quiet ones.

The Google Drive alternative

Drive File Request removes both the expiry and the transfer step. You sign in with your Google account, create a link, and every upload is written straight into a folder inside your own Drive, where it stays as long as you keep it — there is no download window, and no second copy of anything. Senders still need no account; unlike WeTransfer, they also need no verified email address, so the upload is a single page and a drag.

The things WeTransfer requests cannot do are the ones this was built for: a password on the link, allowed senders restricted by email or domain, per-link size and file-count limits, an expiry date on the link that you choose, and custom questions — name, notes, a document type — answered on the upload page so files arrive labelled and can be routed into subfolders by the answer. The access-control side is covered in secure file upload portal, and the sorting side in document collection software.

Side by side

If you are picking between more than two

WeTransfer is the odd one out among the tools people compare here, because it is the only one that is not also cloud storage — Dropbox, Box, and OneDrive all keep what you receive. The equivalent write-ups are Dropbox file requests, Box, and OneDrive, with all of them side by side here. If you have not settled on a category yet, file request software covers what these tools have in common, and the Drive-native workarounds are in how to create a file request link for Google Drive.

Frequently asked questions