Secure upload

What this is for

The usual ways of receiving a file from somebody outside your organization are all bad in the same way. Email attachments bounce on size and arrive unscanned. A shared drive folder means creating an account for a person you will deal with once. A public form means anyone who finds the address can post to it.

A secure upload link is narrower than any of those: it is one address, for one purpose, that stops working on a schedule you set. The person using it needs no account and sees nothing of yours except your display name and the note you wrote them.

Creating a link

Every file can be up to 1 GB, and a link takes up to 50 files in total, counted across everyone who uses it.

What it will accept

Choose the narrowest preset that covers what you are expecting. It is not merely tidiness: the preset is enforced against what the file actually is, not what it is called, and a narrow preset is a smaller target. A video recorded on the page is accepted whatever the preset, as long as Allow video recording is on.

One kind of archive is always refused: a password-protected ZIP. Its contents can’t be virus-scanned, so it is rejected rather than trusted.

One link, many files

Every link collects files. A sender can choose several at once, come back later and add more, or share the link with others who add their own — nobody who uses the link sees anyone else’s files.

Files go straight from the sender’s browser to encrypted storage, and sit there privately while they are checked. Nothing is visible to you, and no link exists for anyone, until a file has been confirmed clean. A file that fails never becomes a link at all.

What the sender sees

The upload page shows who the link is from (your display name, if you set one), your note, which file types it takes and how large each file can be. Before they can choose files or record, the sender types Your name — it is required, so you know who sent what — and can add a Note of up to 500 characters. Their name is remembered on that device for next time.

Each file you receive shows From and the sender’s name, with their note underneath, and the email you get for each file includes them too.

Recording a video on the page

When Allow video recording is on, the page offers Record video next to Choose files, with the note Video recordings up to 3 minutes. The sender:

1. Allows the camera and microphone, and can Switch camera
2. Records. Recording stops by itself at 3:00
3. Reviews the clip, then picks Re-record, Delete, or Done — upload video. Nothing is sent before Done

The upload runs in the background with Pause upload and Resume, and picks up again on its own if the connection drops. If the page is closed or reloaded before it finishes, the recording is kept on that device and comes back as Saved on this device · not uploaded yet, with Upload and Discard.

Where a browser can’t use the camera — some apps’ built-in browsers can’t — the page offers Use my camera app instead, and the sender records with the phone’s camera and uploads the file.

Recordings are converted to MP4 and arrive like any other file, marked Recorded on device, with a player so you can watch them on the spot.

What happens to a file that arrives

The check on the fourth row is worth a sentence of its own. Renaming a program to end in .pdf gets it past a filter that reads file names. The check here reads the file’s own contents and refuses it when they do not match the extension it claims — so the rename buys nothing.

Every file also gets a fingerprint recorded when it arrives, and every event in a link’s life — created, opened, refused, accepted, expired, closed — is written to a log that is only ever added to. If a question comes up later about what was sent and when, the answer already exists.

Files that are refused

On the link’s page, each file carries its own status: Scanning or Processing while it is being checked, Ready once it is clean, or one of three outcomes that mean it never became a link:

In every one of these cases the link stays open for other files. If a threat turns up and you don’t trust where the link has gone, press Expire now — it stops the link at once, without needing to reach whoever holds it.

The states of a link

Close invite and Expire now are different tools. Close invite appears once files have arrived, and is the graceful end of a collection that is finished: recipients can no longer upload, but received files stay available. Expire now is what you do when a link has gone somewhere it should not have — forwarded, posted, sent to the wrong address — and the upload link stops working immediately.

After a file arrives

An accepted file becomes a Dynamic Link in your account, which means it behaves like anything else you own: it can be renamed, protected, restricted, or deleted, and the address stays the same while what sits behind it changes. Where Protected viewer is on, that is applied as the link is created rather than being something you remember to do afterwards.

Video is converted where it needs to be. The platform reads which format a video is really in — not just its file ending — and converts anything that phones and browsers can’t all play into a standard MP4, no larger than 1920 pixels on its long side. Every video gets a still frame to use as a poster. If somebody opens the link while the conversion is still running, they see Preparing your video for a moment instead of a file that won’t play. You do not need to ask for any of this.

Where several files have arrived on one link, they can be selected together and downloaded, deleted, or sent on as a group rather than handled one at a time.

In the Linxy App

Everything above works from the App too. Tap Create: under the three TouchPoint types, below Or collect files, is Secure Upload. It opens New secure upload — its Purpose, what people can send (Media for photos, video and audio, Documents, or Anything), how long it stays open (4 hours, 24 hours, 7 days or Until I expire it), a note to senders, the name they see it is from, and the Let them record video and Protected viewer switches, both on. Create upload link gives you the link with Copy, Share, Send by text and Send by email. Links made in the App use the default region, United States only; to choose another region, create the link on the web.

Your secure uploads, the link under the card, lists your links under Open and Closed with how many files and people each has, and a New tag when something has arrived since you last looked. You also get a notification for each file once it has passed its checks; tapping it opens that link’s files.

On a link’s page, photos and videos are a grid of thumbnails — a video shows its length, and a file still being checked shows Preparing…. Documents are listed underneath, with notes from senders below them. Tap anything to open it inside the App. Save or share all gathers the ready files into your phone’s share sheet, where you can save them to your photos or files or send them on. Expire now is at the bottom.

Sharing one file

Touch and hold a file to make a link to just that file. Each time you do, a new Dynamic Link is made in your account, so it can be turned off, changed or protected in My Linxy › Links without affecting the file or any other link to it. Open in the private viewer is on by default: people see the file in Linxy’s protected viewer rather than being handed the file itself. A small link badge on the thumbnail shows how many links you have made to it.

When the sender has the Linxy App

Somebody with the App who taps your upload link — or a short link or Mark that leads to it — gets a Send files screen inside the App instead of the web page: Take photo, Record video (when you allowed it), Photos & videos and Files, a note for you, and Sending as with their account name, which they can change. Files go at full quality, without compression, each with its own progress bar, and pass through exactly the same checks as files sent from the web page. Anything the link does not accept is left out, with a message, before anything is sent.

Your drop link

Every Linxy account, Free included, has one permanent upload link of its own: My drop link. It is made for you, it never expires, and it is the quickest way to say “send it to me”. Text or email the link; the person taps it, adds photos, videos or files, and they arrive in My Files › Received. In the app it is pinned at the top of Your secure uploads, with a Share button right on it.

A drop link accepts photos, video, audio, documents and archives, up to 1 GB per file, and the sender can record a video right on the page. Every file goes through the same checks as any other secure upload. Files count toward your plan’s My Files storage; when it is full, senders are told you cannot receive more files right now.

Your drop link does not replace special-purpose links. When you want a link with its own label, note, file types, region or closing time, create one exactly as before.

Where the files are saved (My Files)

Every file that arrives on a Secure Upload link is also saved in My Files, after it passes its checks. When you create a link, Save files to chooses where:

• A new folder named after this link (the default),
• any folder you already have, so several links can fill one folder, or
• Unfiled.

You can change it later from the link's screen in the app (Saved in My Files, then Change). The change applies only to files that arrive afterward; files already received stay where they are. If you delete the folder, new files go to Unfiled.

From My Files you can put received files straight into a Linxy Mark or Dynamic Link. See My Files.

Symptoms, causes and fixes

Things people commonly get wrong

Related reading: Protecting a link, Redirection controls, Uploading media, My Linxy items, and When something is not working.