How to send a folder online

Sending one file is solved. Sending a folder — a project directory, a set of scans, a client handover with subfolders — is where most tools make you do their work for them: zip it first, and hope the other person knows what to do with the archive.

The short answer

Use a transfer that accepts the folder itself, rather than making you package it first. With SaferDrop, you drop the folder in and every file is end-to-end encrypted in your browser before anything leaves your device; the recipient gets one archive that extracts back to the original structure. Folders and multi-file transfers are on the Pro plan, up to 2 GB per transfer.

To be precise about what changes: the archive still exists — you just never handle it. You skip creating it, naming it and deleting it afterwards, and, more importantly, no copy of your folder is ever stored on a server along the way.

Why zipping became the default, and why it is a poor one

Zip exists because email attaches files, not directories. That constraint shaped every tool that came after, so we all learned to compress a folder before sending it. It carries real costs:

• It usually saves nothing. Photos, video, audio, PDFs and modern Office documents are already compressed. Zipping a folder of them shaves a few percent while adding two manual steps you have to remember every time.
• It leaves an unencrypted copy on your machine. The archive sits in your Downloads or Desktop folder afterwards — a plain duplicate of material you were being careful about, usually forgotten.
• It is easy to get wrong under time pressure. The wrong subfolder included, last week's export left in, the archive from the previous client still named files.zip and picked by mistake.
• Cross-platform quirks. macOS archives carry __MACOSX folders and .DS_Store files into Windows; long paths and non-ASCII filenames still break older archivers.

None of this makes the archive format itself the problem — it is a good container, and it is what your recipient will receive either way. The problem is doing the packaging by hand, and the local copy it leaves behind. A folder-aware transfer takes that step off you.

One case still favours zipping first: a folder of many small text-like files — code, logs, CSVs, plain documents — where compression genuinely makes the transfer smaller. There, compress before you send.

The options, compared

What happens to the folder on the way

Browsers can read a directory tree directly, so the packaging step moves off your desk and into the transfer. Each file is encrypted individually with AES-256-GCM in your browser, streamed to the recipient over a direct connection, and assembled on their side into one archive carrying the original paths. Nothing is uploaded to a server on the way — the mechanics are in sending large files without uploading.

Delivering an archive rather than loose files is deliberate. It is the one format every operating system opens without help, it keeps original filenames and the directory tree exactly as you had them, and it avoids the mess of a browser writing dozens of files into a downloads folder. The recipient extracts once and has your folder back.

Sending a folder, step by step

1. Tidy it first. Remove the working files, the earlier exports and the stray screenshots. It is the cheapest way to make the transfer smaller and the handover clearer.
2. Check the total size. A single transfer covers up to 2 GB on Pro. Split a larger handover into logical parts rather than trying to force one transfer.
3. Open SaferDrop and choose the folder. Files and subfolders are picked up together.
4. Share the link and the PIN separately. The decryption key lives in the link fragment and never reaches a server; the PIN gates the transfer, so an intercepted link alone is useless.
5. Stay on the page while it streams. The connection is direct between the two browsers, so both stay open until the last file lands.

If the folder is confidential

Folders of client work, records or case files are exactly the material worth keeping off third-party storage — an archive in a shared drive is a single object someone can copy in one action. The handling advice is in how to send confidential documents, and the general method for anything large is in how to send large files securely.

Frequently asked questions