The problem with "just make an account"
You send a file. The recipient hits a login wall. Now they're choosing between creating yet another account, pinging you to "send it a different way", or giving up. If they're a client, that friction is your problem, not theirs. A good share link should be like a parcel: they click, they get the thing, done.
Who forces sign-ups, who doesn't
At the time of writing:
- WeTransfer — no account needed to download. This is genuinely its strong suit and a big reason clients recognise it. The trade-offs sit elsewhere: free links die after around three days, and passwords plus custom expiry are paid.
- Google Drive / OneDrive / Dropbox — depends on the link mode. "Anyone with the link" downloads freely; but the moment you restrict a share to specific people, the recipient typically has to sign in with a matching account. Many corporate recipients also hit their own company's blocks on consumer cloud drives.
- Messaging apps (WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram) — no extra account, but only because you're both already on the same app. That's the requirement, just pre-paid.
- Email attachments — nothing to sign up for, but caps around 20–25 MB and no control after sending.
If you're weighing up the send-a-big-file tools specifically, our WeTransfer alternatives page goes through them properly.
How it works here
MoveMyWork share links never ask the recipient for anything except, optionally, a passphrase you set. No account, no app install, no email address collected from them. They click the link, see the file name and size, and download it in their browser — phone or laptop.
You keep the controls on your side:
- Expiry and view limits — the link dies on your schedule, not the platform's. Details in the expiring links guide.
- Optional passphrase — for sensitive files, sent separately.
- Revoke anytime — one click and the link stops working, even mid-conversation.
- Unguessable URLs, kept out of search — share tokens are long random strings and share pages tell search engines not to index them.
All of it is on the free tier: 3 GB of storage, files up to 250 MB each. Only the sender has an account — and signing up takes an email address, no card.
Walkthrough
- Upload the file (or find it in your clipboard history — anything you've synced can be shared).
- Click Share on the file's row.
- Pick an expiry, and a passphrase or view limit if you want one.
- Copy the URL and send it however you already talk to this person. That's the whole flow on their side: click, download.
One honest note
"No account for the recipient" cuts both ways: anyone holding the URL can open the link unless you add a passphrase. For anything sensitive, set one and send it through a different channel than the link. For everything else, a short expiry keeps an unprotected link from mattering for long.