YouSendIt fail - alternatives?
April 2, 2012 12:57 PM   Subscribe

Anybody know of any more-reliable alternatives to YouSendIt?

We've got a couple of clients who use YouSendIt to receive large files from clients and prospects -- mostly CAD, that kind of thing. We set them up to do it this way rather than coding something up for their website, on the theory that it would be easier and more secure than anything we had to brew up.

Unfortunately, we're finding that we can't count on YouSendIt to actually deliver files that are uploaded: We know of cases where files are successfully uploaded through a YouSendIt drop box, with a confirmation message displayed in the browser window and no errors displayed, where the files are simply never delivered. In fact I can pretty easily duplicate this behavior -- so far it seems to be limited to Safari, but so far I've only tested Safari and Chrome and since the failure mode is silent, even that one failure is unacceptable. Also, I have reason to believe that this has been going on for many months. (Gotta love silent failure modes....)

Anyway, what I'm looking for mostly is suggestions for services that have a similar mode of operation -- mostly, that people need to be able to submit the files without having to create a login, and the cost needs to be reasonable (these are people who've already paid hundreds for YouSendIt Pro and aren't going to be happy about replacing it). Suggestions?
posted by lodurr to Computers & Internet (28 answers total) 6 users marked this as a favorite
 
Dropbox.
posted by empath at 12:58 PM on April 2, 2012


I also like Dropbox.
posted by insectosaurus at 1:02 PM on April 2, 2012


Response by poster: Can dropbox work without a client?

If so, does it permit users to upload files via the web, without creating an account?
posted by lodurr at 1:06 PM on April 2, 2012


Dropbox requires an account. I'm not sure what you mean by client.

The basic account limits storage to 2GB (total, not per file). Not sure how that affects your uses. You can buy more storage for a fee.
posted by dfriedman at 1:07 PM on April 2, 2012


Response by poster: By 'client' i meant a client app other than a browser.

Here's the scenario for how these clients use YouSendIt:
  1. Prospect hits their website.
  2. Prospect uploads one or more files detailing specs for a project for which they want a quote (could be CAD files, high-res images, videos, etc.)
  3. Our client is notified, downloads files, returns quote, gets job, everyone's happy.
So, w.r.t. [2], visitors need to be able to do this:
  • Using only a web browser;
  • without creating an account on the upload service (and this needs to be obvious).

posted by lodurr at 1:10 PM on April 2, 2012


If you create your own Dropbox account, you have to install something on to your computer.

But, then you can give the log-in and password information to someone, and they can upload files via the web without installing anything.
posted by insectosaurus at 1:11 PM on April 2, 2012


Response by poster: The problem is that YouSendIt is silently failing to deliver files or notifications of files. We have no idea and no way of finding out how often this has happened -- my experiments with our own YouSendIt account indicate to me that when it fails, there's absolutely no trace.
posted by lodurr at 1:11 PM on April 2, 2012


Response by poster: It needs to be possible for anonymous users to send without doing anything special. YouSendIt allows you to do this, when it works.
posted by lodurr at 1:12 PM on April 2, 2012


SkyDrive?
posted by KokuRyu at 1:27 PM on April 2, 2012


Response by poster: SkyDrive doesn't look like it will do the trick, but in checking it out I did find this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_file_hosting_services

Also found Cincopa, but haven't figured out yet if it allows anonymous uploads.
posted by lodurr at 1:32 PM on April 2, 2012


Response by poster: [of course the wikipedia chart also duesn't tell me if any of them allow anon upload.]
posted by lodurr at 1:35 PM on April 2, 2012


If Dropbox seems too involved, I'd recommend wetransfer. Bonus is that the interface is much classier than yousendit and I've never had it fail on me...
posted by PardonMyFrench at 1:43 PM on April 2, 2012 [1 favorite]


Here is a quick list of some transfer services other than YouSendIt. I have either used or received files from them in the past, but cannot vouch for all of their services, cost (or lack thereof) and reliability. A couple have been noted already. I do know that I did not have a problem with any of them though.

Again, some are free, but some may have gone to a pay-for service now.

TransferBigFiles.com
SendSpace.com
LargeFilesASAP.com
SizableSend.com
SendThisFile.com
Attachmore.com
DropBox.com

I am sure there are more, but that should get you started.)
posted by lampshade at 1:45 PM on April 2, 2012 [1 favorite]


What about WeTransfer.com? Up to 2GB can be sent, no need for an account, plus download receipt emails are sent.
posted by jonathanbell at 2:17 PM on April 2, 2012 [1 favorite]


ge.tt is another
posted by ejaned8 at 2:26 PM on April 2, 2012 [1 favorite]


In the meantime can you have the yousendit link sent to your own email and then just copy + paste it in an email to the recipient? Then you will know it was properly sent and received.
posted by tinamonster at 2:46 PM on April 2, 2012


You can use the Dropbox API to allow anyone to upload files to your account. This means you can have a upload page on your site that just dumps files in your file. Here's the code.
posted by Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug at 3:05 PM on April 2, 2012 [2 favorites]


The secret weapon I use

wikisend

Free, no account needed. For files up to 100mb, just upload and it gives you a link to send in an email. They download. That's it. The files are deleted after 7 days. You can send the same download link to multiple people. Wikisend never sees their email addresses. I have used this for years.

You can set up a free account and have the files kept for any number of days from 1 to 90 and password protect the file.

On the free version, each file is private and not listed anywhere - but a hacker snooping around and downloading everything they find could find each one with some difficulty. For noncritical stuff, who cares. You could ZIP your file with a password or something more.
posted by caclwmr4 at 5:13 PM on April 2, 2012 [1 favorite]


A no-fuss site I really like is http://minus.com - no sign up needed, 2gb maximum size. (Make sure to make the folder "private" when uploading if you don't want to share it with the world by mistake).
posted by samj at 5:38 PM on April 2, 2012


Response by poster: tinamonster: the problem is that YouSendIt appears to never actually upload the files. All the web-interface indicators would lead you to believe they had done so, but it never shows up in the account inbox, and no confirmation emails are sent. (Also, the biggest problem was arising when people wanted to send to our clients. Typically these would be unsolicited submissions -- mostly, requests for quote on engineering projects or exotic materials orders. The prospect sending the file wouldn't necessarily have tried to communicate outside the YouSendIt channel, so that typically represents a [potentially very large] lost sale for our client.)
posted by lodurr at 4:21 AM on April 3, 2012


Response by poster: This suggestion prompted me to look somewhere else -- knowing there was an API and existing sample code made it likely that some drupaler (both client sites run on Drupal) had wanted to use Dropbox and so they have. (May still need to futz with notifications, but both sites have the right modules installed already to set up a notification workflow.)

I need to see what the failure mode and notifications are like, but right now that's an attractive solution because it brings more things into territory that I can affect -- right now, YouSendIt is claiming that all these issues are due to backlogs in their spam filtering, which doesn't make much sense for reasons I'll go into if anyone's curious and in any case doesn't address the problem that they no longer provide a timely and reliable way to send files.

Failing integration of Dropbox, you've given me some things to look at.

Does anybody making recommendations have any sense of the reliability of various services? Especially I'm looking for cases where delivery seemed to just never happen.
posted by lodurr at 4:35 AM on April 3, 2012


If you create your own Dropbox account, you have to install something on to your computer.

This is not correct. I use it on my work pc all the time through their web interface, which is excellent.
posted by empath at 5:52 AM on April 3, 2012


What empath said.

As part of the account setup process Dropbox says something like "Right, well your account's almost set up, now you'll want to download our software" but it's entirely possible to ignore that step.

I've got by fine only ever using the web interface.
posted by the latin mouse at 6:54 AM on April 3, 2012


Response by poster: I'm not going to get hung up on debating what dropbox does or doesn't require, but they definitely need to do a much, much better job of explaining on their website what their actual service offerings are, how you use them, and what they cost. Minimalism in messaging gone far too far. You have to sign up before you have an obvious way to learn anything much, and even then the information architecture sucks.

All that said, knowing that I can use an API to work with an actual widely-used cloud file storage app makes me feel a lot better than the file transfer applications do. Dropbox may suck at explaining themselves, but I know a lot of people who use them.
posted by lodurr at 11:12 AM on April 3, 2012


Here's the tour.
posted by empath at 12:24 PM on April 3, 2012


Best answer: Yeah, the presentation and the site is not perfect, but Dropbox is freaking amazing. Totally changed the way I work. I use it on my home PC, work PC, my Mac, my iPhone, my iPad. It just works, and more and more apps are being developed with Dropbox support. You can also share an entire folder in your Dropbox with someone, which makes sharing projects or groups of files very easy. The API support means you can build a very simple upload feature into your site so anyone with a web browser can send a file to your Dropbox. If you put the files in your Public folder (inside your Dropbox), you can copy & paste a public download link that anyone can use, as many times as necessary, and will never expire (until you delete the file.) Dropbox doesn't require the software to be installed; as others have said, you can skip that step and just use the web interface. But on all the platforms I use it on (Win7, WinXP, Mac, iPhone, iPad) it is so darn useful (the integration on Mac and Win7 is really, really well done) I can't imagine why you wouldn't want to use it.

I manage a print-for-pay shop, and we are constantly dealing with large files (blueprints, etc), multiple files, project folders with all sorts of stuff inside, and Dropbox has made both sending and receiving these files so much easier. We used to use Yousendit, even had a paid account. There's no way I'd go back now. So many of our customers use it, Dropbox has become a verb. "Let me Dropbox that to you" is something we hear every day.

This is cool because when people you regularly share files with are also Dropbox users, sharing a folder in Dropbox makes swapping multiple files or projects a drag-and-drop operation. We have shared folders set up for our biggest clients, and they'll be on the phone with me saying "Okay I just pasted the file in there" and bloop! it shows up on my end.
posted by xedrik at 9:10 PM on April 3, 2012


Response by poster: Right, I get that. It's not very useful -- just a high level overview in sales-pitch language. Most people approaching that site will conclude that they have to sign up before they can understand what the service levels are and what they can actually do with it. Unless their plan is to put a choke on direct sales, they're doing an extremely bad job of selling themselves.
posted by lodurr at 3:38 AM on April 4, 2012


Response by poster: (answer was to empath.)
posted by lodurr at 3:39 AM on April 4, 2012


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