Best tool to receive large uploads of images (easily)

August 21, 2024 8:05 AM

I buy collections of vintage Star Wars toys for my business. I need a way for people to upload images of their collection to a folder where I can view them. It needs to be easy enough for your grandma and handle 100+ photos at a time. I don't want people to have to login to a service to do this.

People contact me for an offer on their collection. Our current workflow has them contact us through a page on our site, and then we send them a custom link to upload pics to a folder we created for them. We've used Dropbox and Google Drive for this in the past, but Dropbox tricks people into creating accounts and Google Drive requires a login. I'd like a solution that's super easy for the user (some of these folks are older and not internet savvy) and doesn't require a login. I don't need any other fancy features, we delete the folders once we're done with them.

Our site is on Shopify. If there was a way to build this type of upload into a contact page, that would be perfect, but most solutions I can find require uploading each image individually as part of a contact form, or are meant for uploading images as part of a custom order.

posted by dripdripdrop to Technology (8 answers total)

The free version of WeTransfer is super simple to use (no login, but you do have to supply your email address), and I'd imagine that the paid version would give you even more control.

Otherwise, you'd want to look into creating your own upload page on a personal website. I work with a lot of printing presses and they often have upload portals on their websites where you can upload many files at a time. One site, for example will do a whole folder at a time.
posted by hydra77 at 8:32 AM on August 21

You can set up a request for any folder in Dropbox then just leave it open (I use my cleverly-named 'Uploads' folder). This will produce a URL that will take users to a webform for upload, and you'll be notified.
posted by jmfitch at 8:54 AM on August 21

Seconding Dropbox for this, as described by jmfinch. I asked a similar question recently – same need for a dead simple, no-login-for-the-uploader way to upload large files for me to see and download. I already have a Dropbox account so it was super easy to set up the request, and then share the URL for people to drag their files into. Super easy – although obv you'll need a Dropbox account yourself.
posted by Molasses808 at 10:28 AM on August 21

It seems like dropbox has dark patterns though that convince the less internet savvy that they need an account. We have used Dropbox to share a link to a folder that does not require login, but several older folks have complained about having to sign up to upload things. Any less scammy alternatives to Dropbox that do the same thing?
posted by dripdripdrop at 12:21 PM on August 21

That's a fair concern, but as far as I've experienced a Dropbox request doesn't require anything but an email address from the submitter. FWIW, I've moved to Proton Drive, but I don't think it has a similar feature (yet).
posted by jmfitch at 5:19 PM on August 21

Dropbox always wants me to upgrade. Someone sent me a Box link recently and it worked really well.
posted by nouvelle-personne at 10:57 PM on August 21

Wormhole works great in my experience. Supports multiple files via drag-and-drop, then the user sends you the download link. The files are encrypted with the encryption key sent as the URL fragment (similar to how Mega does it) so Wormhole has no access to your data even if they wanted to. Caveats: Size limit of 5 GB (or 10 GB if the sender keeps the browser window open), files only stay up for 24 hours.
posted by neckro23 at 1:53 AM on August 22

Box.net does this with the File Request Link. You can create a folder, publish a link, and people can upload files to that folder. With a Business Plan, I think you can make a form that you can embed on your web page
posted by youknowwhatpart at 7:43 PM on August 22