Short answer: the most generous free WeTransfer alternative is SwissTransfer, with 50 GB per transfer, no account, and files kept for up to 30 days. If you send several medium-sized files a month, Yungle sends 10 GB per transfer, as many transfers as you like, with no account and no ads. WeTransfer's own free plan allows 3 GB or 10 transfers in a rolling 30 days, and deletes them after 3 days.
I run Yungle, which is one of the options below, so weigh this page accordingly. Every claim about another company comes from its own pages, with the date I checked them, and there are no competitor prices, because they change faster than I can keep up. Where something else is the better choice, I say so.
The short version
- One huge file, now and then: SwissTransfer. Free, no account, 50 GB per transfer.
- Something big, and you are not in a hurry: Smash, which queues large free transfers rather than refusing them.
- Several medium files a month: Yungle, 10 GB each, as many as you like.
- Your team already pays for Dropbox: Dropbox Transfer costs nothing extra.
- Business data about people: none of the free tiers. You need a data processing agreement, and that is a section of its own below.
What WeTransfer's free plan actually limits
From WeTransfer's own help pages, checked 18 October 2026: the free plan allows 10 transfers or 3 GB in total in any rolling 30-day window, and free transfers expire after 3 days. Choosing your own expiry date, up to a link that never expires, starts on its Ultimate plan.
3 GB a month
None of that is unreasonable for a free product. It only hurts in three situations, and if none apply to you, staying put is a perfectly good decision:
- The file is bigger than 3 GB, which for anything shot on a modern camera is most weeks.
- The link expired while the client was away, and now you are uploading 40 GB again. There is a whole article about that afternoon.
- You need a data processing agreement, or proof the files stay in Europe.
The four kinds of free
"Free" in this category means one of four things, and they are not equally good bargains:
- Free with a ceiling. A fixed transfer size, nothing else hidden. Honest and easy to reason about.
- Free but slow. No hard wall, but big transfers wait their turn. Smash does this openly.
- Free because of advertising. Your recipient sees ads on the download page — including the client you just sent a paid deliverable to.
- Free as a trial. It stops after a while. Useful for trying paid features, but not a free tier.
The alternatives, one by one
SwissTransfer: 50 GB, no account
From Infomaniak's own documentation, checked 18 October 2026: files up to 50 GB, and the sender picks how long they last, up to 30 days. Choose 30 and the files are deleted after 15 days unless the sender accepts the extension offered by email on the twelfth day. The sender can also cap downloads at 1, 20, 100 or 250; unlimited downloads need a paid plan.
The catch is real: if the archive is over 10 GB, the recipient downloads the files one by one instead of as a single zip. For one big video that does not matter. For a shoot of four hundred images it matters a lot, which makes SwissTransfer a great tool for occasional sending rather than for client delivery. And Switzerland is outside the EU, so it does not meet a strict "inside the EU" requirement. The SwissTransfer alternatives go further, and Yungle vs SwissTransfer sets the two side by side.
Smash: 2 GB with priority, then a queue
From Smash's own pricing page, checked 18 October 2026: 2 GB per transfer free, kept up to 7 days, no sign-up. Beyond 2 GB you are not refused; the transfer joins a queue behind paying customers. Paid plans keep transfers for 30 days.
That is an unusual and fairly honest design. Not in a hurry? A 20 GB transfer on a free account is possible. In a hurry? It is not. Smash says it dedicates the free version's upload and download screens to advertisers. Smash vs WeTransfer compares the two free tiers directly.
Filemail: 5 GB with a free account
From Filemail's own plan comparison, checked 18 October 2026: the free Basic plan is for files of 5 GB or less, and you sign up to use it. Password protection, file requests and branding start on Pro, and the Business plan lists transfer size as "Any Size". If your problem really is one enormous file moving fast, Filemail is built for exactly that.
Dropbox Transfer: 2 GB, no ads
From Dropbox's own help centre, checked 18 October 2026: 2 GB on Dropbox Basic, kept 7 days, sent from a Dropbox account; the recipient needs no account. Passwords and custom expiry dates are on paid plans. No advertising, a clean download page, and if your team already pays for Dropbox it costs nothing extra. It is rarely worth buying Dropbox to get it — WeTransfer vs Dropbox explains why they solve different problems.
Yungle: 10 GB per transfer, as many as you like
Mine. 10 GB per transfer, unlimited transfers, 7 days, no account, no ads. Transfers show you who downloaded and when, and every file is always encrypted with its own key, on servers in Germany.
The free tier is shaped that way — big per transfer, unlimited in number, short-lived — because the subscriptions pay for it, not advertising. What a plan buys is not bigger transfers; it is keeping things: collections whose folders stay as you uploaded them, favourites and comments for proofing, links clients use to send files to you, and nothing that expires unless you set a date.
Where it is not the answer: if your file is one 40 GB export, SwissTransfer takes it in one go and Yungle's free tier does not. If you need 300 GB moved in a single transfer, Filemail is built for that.
Which free tier for which job
| If you are | Use |
|---|---|
| Sending one huge file, occasionally | SwissTransfer, 50 GB |
| Sending something big and not in a hurry | Smash, and accept the queue |
| Sending several medium files a month | Yungle, 10 GB each, unlimited |
| Already paying for Dropbox | Dropbox Transfer |
| Happy to make an account for 5 GB | Filemail Basic |
| Delivering client work you will be asked for again | A paid plan, chosen on what happens after delivery |
For a business: what free tiers do not give you
When a company rather than a person is sending, transfer size is usually the least important question. Four others decide whether a service is usable at all:
- Who is responsible if this leaks? If the files hold personal data, you are the controller and the transfer service is your processor. That needs a data processing agreement you can actually sign — not a "GDPR compliant" badge. What the GDPR requires is a six-point checklist.
- Who can compel access? Where the servers are and who owns the company are two different questions. A US-owned provider storing in Frankfurt is still subject to US legal process; the CLOUD Act piece explains why.
- What happens when the sender leaves? Links created from a personal account leave with the person. Named colleagues in one shared workspace turn a departure into a revocation, not a handover.
- How long do we keep it? Free tiers delete in days. A business usually needs "for the engagement, then deleted on purpose" — retention is a decision, not a default.
Put five questions to any vendor in writing: can we have a DPA and a list of sub-processors; which country are the files in and whose courts can compel you; what happens to an employee's links when they leave; can we set retention in both directions; and what does the recipient see — our brand, yours, or an advert. Mine are answered on the security page, the data processing agreement is published, and Yungle for business goes through it from your side.
The greener choice: read retention backwards
If you want a lower-carbon way to send files, check two things: what powers the data centre, and how long files are kept. The second matters more. Storage runs every second a file exists, while the transfer is over in minutes, so a service that deletes quickly can beat one that keeps everything forever on renewable power.
Read the "kept for" column in the table above as a footprint figure instead of a feature, and the ranking flips: the shortest default is the lightest to run, and a plan where nothing expires is the heaviest. Yungle runs at Hetzner in Germany, on hydropower, keeps one primary copy rather than three regional replicas, and gives a tenth of its profit to Rainforest Trust — a donation, not a claim about electricity. Everything it does and does not claim is on the sustainability page, and eco-friendly file sharing shows how to check any provider's claims.
When free stops being the right answer
Free tiers are built for sending. They are poor at delivering, and it shows in the same three places every time:
- Expiry. Every free tier here deletes your files within days. Fine for a file; not fine for a deliverable a client comes back to in March.
- Structure. Free tiers flatten folders or zip them. Anything organised — a shoot, a project, a build — keeps its folders or it does not.
- Accountability. Sooner or later someone asks where the data lives and who signed for it.
None of that means pay today. It means that the moment you catch yourself re-uploading the same files because a link died, free has started costing you more than a plan. The cheapest way to find out is to try both with one real delivery:
Plans and what they include are on the pricing page.