How to send files to yourself between devices

To send a file to yourself between two devices, open a direct transfer on the device that has the file and open the link on the other one. With SaferDrop, you sign in on the sending device; the receiving device needs no account and installs nothing. The file streams straight between the two browsers, end-to-end encrypted, and is never stored in the cloud. Two conditions, stated up front: both devices must be online at the same time, and the link expires within an hour.

When something else is simpler

Moving a file between your own devices is a solved problem in some cases, and it would be silly to pretend otherwise:

• Apple to Apple, in the same room: AirDrop. Nothing to open, and the file arrives untouched.
• Android to Android or Windows, nearby: Quick Share works the same way.
• Hundreds of gigabytes: a USB drive or a cable is still the fastest thing there is.

A browser transfer earns its place in the gaps: an iPhone and a Windows laptop, a work PC and a home Mac, two devices in different places, or a machine where you cannot install anything.

Why not just email it to yourself, or use the cloud?

• Emailing yourself stops at 20–25 MB per message, and the file then sits in your mailbox, on your provider's servers, indefinitely. See file too large to email for the limits.
• A cloud drive handles size well, but it is two trips — upload, then download — and it leaves a copy behind that the provider can read and that you have to remember to delete. For a one-off move between two of your own screens, that copy is pure overhead.
• A chat with yourself in a messaging app is convenient, but photos and video are usually compressed on the way, and the file is uploaded to the app's servers.

How to do it, step by step

1. On the device that has the file, sign in at saferdrop.com/send and add the file. It is encrypted in that browser with AES-256-GCM before anything leaves the device.
2. Get the link onto the other device. On Pro, scan the QR code shown next to the link with your phone's camera. On the free plan, pass the link through something you already have on both devices — a note-to-self chat, for example. The link alone opens nothing: it also needs the PIN.
3. Open the link on the other device and type the 6-digit PIN shown on the first one. No account is needed on this side.
4. Keep both screens on until it finishes. On a phone, keep the browser in the foreground: mobile systems pause background tabs, and the file streams live.

What it can carry

Up to 100 MB per transfer on the free plan, one file at a time — a document, a photo, a short clip. Up to 2 GB on Pro, which also takes several files or a whole folder in one go. Larger than that, a cable or a drive is the better tool.

The honest trade-offs

• Both devices online, at the same time. There is no stored copy to fetch later. You cannot send from the office and collect at home an hour after — for that, cloud storage is the right answer.
• The link expires within an hour. Create a new one when you need it; it takes seconds.
• An interrupted transfer restarts from the beginning. With nothing stored, there is nothing to resume from.

In return, the file never sits on a server, nobody but you can decrypt it, and there is nothing to clean up afterwards. On the same Wi-Fi network, the two browsers usually connect directly to each other. When a network blocks that, the encrypted data goes through a relay that cannot read it, and the page says so. How that works is in sending large files without uploading, and the comparison with storing the file is in cloud transfer vs direct transfer.

Moving phone video specifically? How to send a large video file covers the iPhone and Android details.

Frequently asked questions