For years WeTransfer was the answer to "how do I send a big file" - open the site, drag the file in, type two email addresses, done. No account, no friction.
That version no longer exists. WeTransfer was acquired by Bending Spoons in July 2024, and the free tier has tightened considerably since. Most of the confusion online comes from articles written before those changes, so this piece sets out what the free plan actually gives you now, and where the ceilings sit.
Key takeaways
- The free plan now requires an account - the old no-signup flow is gone
- Free transfers expire after 3 days, and that is not adjustable
- There is a 30-day rolling cap on the free plan, which is the limit most people hit first
- Passwords and custom expiry are paid features
The Account Requirement
This is the biggest change from the WeTransfer people remember. You now need to create an account and sign in to send anything on the free plan. The classic flow, where a stranger could open the site and fire off a file in thirty seconds, is no longer available.
For occasional senders this is the single most annoying part. It is also why a lot of people started looking for alternatives after 2024 - not because of the size limit, but because the tool stopped being instant.
The Size Limit
WeTransfer's free tier is built around 3 GB. That is generous compared to email, which stops around 25 MB, and roughly in line with what most free transfer services offer.
Where it gets murky is how that 3 GB interacts with the monthly cap, which is the part worth reading carefully.
The Monthly Cap Nobody Mentions
WeTransfer's own plan-limits documentation describes the free tier as "up to 10 transfers or 3 GB in any 30-day period."
That wording matters. It is not phrased as 3 GB per transfer with ten transfers on top - it is presented as an allowance where you hit whichever ceiling comes first, measured over a rolling 30 days. The paid Starter tier is described the same way with a bigger number: "up to 10 transfers or 300 GB in any 30-day period."
Read that way, the free plan gives you a fairly modest monthly volume rather than 3 GB ten times over. Plenty of third-party articles state it the other way, so if you are relying on WeTransfer for regular sending, it is worth watching your own account rather than trusting any summary - including this one.
The rolling window is also worth understanding. It does not reset on the 1st of the month. Older transfers age out of the measurement gradually, so your allowance unlocks in pieces rather than all at once.
The 3-Day Expiry
Free transfers stay available for 3 days. After that the link stops working and recipients can no longer download.
Three days is short if you are sending to someone in a different timezone, or to a client who opens email on Mondays. There is no way to extend it on the free plan - custom expiry is a paid feature. If the recipient misses the window, you upload the whole thing again.
What Costs Money
Several things that used to feel standard are now behind the paywall:
| Feature | Free | Paid |
|---|---|---|
| Account required | Yes | Yes |
| Transfer size | 3 GB | Up to 1 TB on higher tiers |
| Link expiry | Fixed 3 days | Custom |
| Password protection | No | Yes |
| Ads | Yes, full-page | Removed on higher tiers |
The advertising point surprises people. WeTransfer's free tier shows full-page "wallpaper" ads, and so does the entry-level paid plan - you have to go further up the ladder to remove them.
How This Compares
Free transfer services have diverged a lot, and WeTransfer is no longer the obvious default.
SwissTransfer is the outlier on size: up to 50 GB free, no account at all, links up to 30 days, and free password protection. Run by Swiss host Infomaniak. If raw size is your problem, nothing else comes close.
Smash has no size cap on its free tier, but transfers over 2 GB get queued behind paying customers, so a big free send can be slow. Free links last 7 days.
ShareIt.onl takes the opposite approach to WeTransfer on friction. Up to 100 files / 3 GB per share with no account at all, and links you control - 1 hour, 12 hours, 24 hours, 3 days, or 7 days, with a free Google sign-in adding a 30-day option. Password protection and one-time burn links are free rather than paid. Every download extends a live link by 24 hours, so an active share does not die mid-use.
A free account here also comes with 50 GB of live storage and 100 GB of downloads a month pooled across your shares. That is a different shape of allowance to WeTransfer's - the ceiling is on what you hold and what your files serve, not on how many times you press send. It is also a far roomier one: whichever way you read WeTransfer's "10 transfers or 3 GB in any 30-day period", a free account here gives you substantially more to work with, and sending without an account at all is not metered by any monthly counter.
Which to Use When
Use WeTransfer if you are already in its ecosystem, or you need the recipient-notification flow it does well.
Use SwissTransfer if the file is genuinely huge and you do not want an account.
Use ShareIt.onl if you want to send something quickly without signing up, want the link to last longer than 3 days, or want a password on it without paying.
The honest summary is that WeTransfer's free plan is now a fairly restrictive tier attached to a well-known name. It still works, but the thing that made it famous - drag, drop, done, no account - is the part that went away.
Send up to 3 GB with no sign-up, or see the full ShareIt.onl vs WeTransfer comparison.