1d ago

How do you like to transfer large files between friends across the internet?

On occasion I find myself needing to send a file at least a few gigabytes in size to a friend across our slow ISPs but haven't found a satisfying solution. I usually end up creating a private torrent with the announce address of my own IP. Even though it's slow - it basically never reaches my max upload speed for some reason, it is at least resilient if there are ever any network glitches.

Does anyone else face this same challenge?

EDIT: Thank you for the awesome suggestions! I have some homework to do on these

78 comments

My largest file transfer I have done via USB disk. You simply don't transfer multiple terabytes over the net.

I really like Wormhole for this exact purpose.

I use an ancient HTTP File Server program called HFS from Rejetto. Very light weight. Supports making user accounts and whatnot if you want.
I usually just turn it on for a transfer and don't leave it up these days, but still comes in handy on occasion.

rsync

RFC 2549: https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc2549
This problem was solved years ago: https://spectrum.ieee.org/pigeonbased-feathernet-still-wingsdown-fastest-way-of-transferring-lots-of-data

Nextcloud is great for this

https://file.pizza/

You can OnionShare if you're worried about privacy.

I use https://www.sendbig.com/ I haven’t read their privacy policy, though.

Before I moved I used to use my web server.
My Domain . Com / files . Zip And I would set a password on the zip. After they download it, they tell me and I remove the file.

Syncthing
- You can use syncthing to transfer files across the internet? How? I thought it was only for local networks
  
  It just works, there's no "how". Take one of the devices outside, connect to the internet, done.
  
  By default out of the box it will transfer over the internet if it needs to.
- Er, wait, are you using Syncthing for its intended purpose of syncing files across devices on your local network? And then exposing that infrastructure to the internet? Or are you isolating Syncthing instances?
  
  The user can choose. Please note you first much accept another client by its fingerprint.
  
  You're probably thinking of PairDrop (which also allows extranet).
  
  Syncthing is not limited to local network. It's hole punching is one of the major features
  
  Syncthing is not just for LAN use. Even their homepage mentions transmitting data over the internet
  https://syncthing.net/
  I've been using it to sync devices over the internet for years. It's also how people use it to sync from say their desktop to their phones, remote server, etc.
  If you watch your network firewall Syncthing does reach out to servers on the internet to help it find other devices so e.g. if you enter the other device's ID (example ABCDEFG-ABCDEFG-ABCDEFG-ABCDEFG-ABCDEFG-ABCDEFG-ABCDEFG-ABCDEFG) it can reach out over the internet to find that specific ID to pair with. I think Syncthing uses a sort of DHT resolver to find other devices, I know on my firewall I had to whitelist Syncthing's servers to make it work.
  I was going to try to link you some references but their forums seem to have connection issues at the moment, you may want to search around later if you're interested how Syncthing works over the internet.
  
  It's very much a WAN solution too. I use it to push my files to a Pi Zero W that's 200 miles from my house. I use it as an off site store of my files. The Pi is connected as an untrusted device in Syncthing so that all files sit encrypted at rest.
  
  Syncthing has public releays enabling it to work (dunno if one or none need to be public) without both parties being exposed.
  
  Syncthing is designed to be used over the internet, it's why it supports NAT hole punching, relay servers, and discovery servers.

wormhole is good; also its CLI.
https://wormhole.app/
- Wormhole or croc

Me and my friend used netcat to transfer 30 GB of files put into a zip. Very fun, would not recommend

I’d have to have friends across the internet that wanted files first…

Super easy. Spin up an OpenVPN server, forwarding the right ports to your server. Now spin up an Apache server with the folder your file’s in as server root. Send the client config for your VPN to your friend, along with the local address of your HTTP server. Now they can install the OpenVPN client on their PC and download the file from your HTTP server. Once you’re done, tear down all your servers, and don’t forget to unforward the ports. Couldn’t be easier.
/s
- I have non-ironically gotten responses like this
- Okay can you explain why thats a sarcastic answer? Is one of those first three steps way harder than I think it is?
  
  Cause that’s not simple or easy at all. It takes a fair bit of knowledge to set up all of these things.
  
  openvpn and apache can be very time consuming to set up if you do it for the first time

You could try wormhole. It makes a direct connection.
- Or croc which is very similar. I think it also allows to resume file transfers.

Friends I know IRL: Thumbdrives.
Friends I only know via the Internet: Torrents or IRC filesharing.
Though knowing that a homing pigeon with a thumb drive is actually faster than the fastest Internet network on the planet, maybe I should simply invest in a coop and some pigeons. 🤔
- Though knowing that a homing pigeon with a thumb drive is actually faster than the fastest Internet network on the planet
  Depends on how big the flash drive is, I suppose. Need to send a 1GB file? Just make a torrent. Need to send 40TB? Yeah, that hard drive is getting driven across town.
  
  Perhaps two pigeons could carry the hard drive on a string. I've heard tell of swallows that have done this with coconuts.

FileBrowser
Create share links allowing anyone with the link (+ optional password) to browse and download individual files, or whole folder contents.
If someone needs to send me a file, I can create a user for them in a few seconds; so they can upload to that as well.

I've used:
https://send.tresorit.com/
https://wormhole.app/
https://pairdrop.net/
But for slower connections bittorrent is the best option by far because it doesn't care about interruptions, and verifies the data as it goes. Just gotta make sure you're port forwarding the client.

I literally just set up a container for Erugo for this exact thing. It worked perfectly and was super easy to do. It's just a self-hosted version of wetransfer. Could be helpful...

I'd go for syncthing over nextcloud for your specific usecase. Nextcloud isn't good for unreliable connections and they're sticking with the annoying decision of not supporting server to server synchronization.

If they are local, you can just put it on a thumb drive and physically transfer it.
- If they’re not local, you can put it on a pen drive and mail it to them.
- Absolutely, that is definitely preferred when possible!

I find Croc to be rather just good for this.

I used vaultwarden just the other day for this purpose. I mean, I use vaultwarden daily as a password manager, but it also has secure file transfer.

Upload to Proton Drive > Create share link > Share link

If its a file from my seedbox: Direct share link (optional pw)
Local file: OneDrive

My use case is a bit different than yours but still worth mentioning, I think; I have Sharry running in Docker and it makes sharing and receiving files super easy. All downloads and uploads are resumable so they work well even in unstable networks.

I've use Plik before with success.
https://github.com/awesome-selfhosted/awesome-selfhosted?tab=readme-ov-file#file-transfer---single-click--drag-n-drop-upload

Send

I have a minio instance that I use to distribute files

Not sure if this works for you but I didnt see it mentioned. I use plex for my media server, so I would just put whatever it is on there and then someone else can log in remotely and download it through the app on their mobile, and I think also via the website too.
I know this works if the person is downloading from android but haven't tested otherwise.
- That should work for media files at least, but I believe they'll also need Plex pass to be able to download anything.
  
  Should be able to do that with Jellyfin, no Plex/Plex Pass needed (if you really want to use media software for this).
  That said I suspect your current method with creating a torrent to share is much more resilient when dealing with choppy internet connections. With Jellyfin/Plex it's more of a direct download situation, not sure if either can resume broken downloads.

Reminds me I had been needing to find something for this too. Looks like I had thought about using Croc.

Just share the folder on soulseek. Probably not advisable for any sensitive information though xD

Wormhole.app, can't recall if they have a limit atm
- I use wormhole, but when I've wanted to use that website for receiving, I can never tell how to do it.
  Can you actually use that site to receive files?
  
  So just like when you send a file you fwd a link, someone tfering files to you must provide the link. They expire in a maximum of 24 hours though so do be aware of that.
  
  Whoever uploaded them has to send you a link to them. It does have a limit of 10gb, but it's pretty reliable in my experience.

Swisstransfer
Internetxt

i like zipline but i use it for smaller files where download resumability is not a key factor

I tell them to start their Nextcloud client. Or if they don't have it, give them the share link.

I host pingvin for people to send stuff to me. To send, usually I'll just move the file into a folder that exposed to Nginx with indexing and send that link. Otherwise I'll also just use my pingvin instance.

- It's generally not a good idra to give others access to your home network

78 comments