How to send RAW photos to a client

Send RAW files as they are — never re-exported, never "optimised" — and send them as a folder rather than a pile of loose files, because the structure is half the deliverable. The two things that go wrong are a service that re-encodes or strips metadata, and a delivery that arrives flattened so the client cannot tell selects from rejects.

Why RAW is different

A RAW file is sensor data plus metadata, not a picture. That has three consequences for sending:

It cannot be compressed usefully. RAW files are already dense. Zipping a folder of them saves a few percent. Do not expect to shrink your way under a limit.

Any re-encode destroys the point. If a service converts, resizes or "optimises" images, what arrives is not RAW and the client cannot grade it. Anything doing that is disqualified.

Metadata matters. Capture time, lens, ratings, and any keywords or colour labels you applied. A service that strips EXIF, or a workflow that renames files, throws away the organisation you did.

Sizes are substantial: roughly 25–50 MB per frame on a modern full-frame body, more for medium format. A shoot of 800 frames is 20–40 GB, which puts it above most free transfer ceilings.

Structure is half the delivery

A shoot is not a bag of files. It is something like:

Smith-Wedding/
  01-Ceremony/
    RAW/
    Selects/
  02-Portraits/
    RAW/
    Edited/
  03-Reception/
    RAW/

If the service flattens that into one list of 800 filenames, you have handed over a problem rather than a delivery, and the client will email asking which are the edited ones.

Two things to check before you upload 40 GB:

Does the service preserve folders? Many flatten, and several zip everything into one archive. This varies more than you would expect.

Does it download as one archive at any size? SwissTransfer, for example, is free and takes 50 GB per transfer — but per Infomaniak's own documentation checked 1 August 2026, archives over 10 GB must be downloaded one file at a time. For a 40 GB shoot that means the client downloading hundreds of individual files, which is the exact case where a generous size limit stops helping.

Decide what the client actually needs

Most clients do not want RAW. They want finished images. Sending RAW when they wanted JPEGs creates support work for you, because they open a file their software cannot read.

Ask, then send accordingly:

• Finished images only: high-quality JPEG or TIFF exports. Much smaller, opens everywhere.
• RAW for their own grading: the originals, in structure, plus a sidecar or a note about your settings.
• Both: separate folders, clearly named. This is the safe default for commercial work.

If they are picking selects rather than grading, they should be looking at previews, not downloading 40 GB. That is what a proofing gallery is for, and it is the single biggest time-saver in photography delivery.

Delivery that survives the year

The recurring cost in this job is not the upload. It is the client coming back in March for the one from the garden, and your delivery having expired in February.

Free tiers delete files within 7 to 15 days almost universally. So either you re-upload a full shoot for free each time someone asks, or the delivery outlives the free window. How long to keep client files is worth deciding deliberately rather than by default — there are reasons not to keep everything forever, and they are not only about storage cost.

This is the case I built Yungle collections for: folder structure preserved exactly, download as one archive at any size, a gallery the client can browse and mark selects in, and nothing expiring on a paid plan. Free transfers are 10 GB each and unlimited in number, which covers previews and single files. Every file is encrypted at rest with its own key, on one server in Germany.

Keep your own backups of anything you cannot reshoot, whatever service you use — that advice is unconditional and includes mine. The photographer comparison covers the alternatives, including dedicated photography platforms that do print sales and studio management, which I do not.

A checklist before you send a shoot

1. Cull first. Do not send 800 frames when 300 are worth having. It costs the client time too.
2. Name the folders so they mean something without you explaining them.
3. Include a short text file saying what is RAW, what is edited, and what the client is expected to do next.
4. Check the total size before choosing where to send it.
5. Verify the structure arrived by downloading it yourself once, from a signed-out browser. This catches flattening, and it catches the delivery being private when you thought it was shared.
6. Keep your own copy until the job is unambiguously closed.

Step five takes two minutes and is the one that prevents the embarrassing email.