Cloud storage, file transfer, and security, explained.

What this site covers

Cloud storage, file sharing, and file security answer the same everyday question: where do your files live, and who else can reach them? Free File Hosting is an independent guide to those choices. We test claims against each provider's own documentation, date every figure, and tell you when a number could not be confirmed. The goal is a page you can read in five minutes instead of ten vendor tabs.

Cloud storage

A cloud storage account keeps a copy of your files on a company's servers and syncs them to your devices. Free tiers range from a stingy 2 GB at Dropbox to a roomy 20 GB at MEGA, and the paid plans that follow are priced very differently once you look past the headline. Some services hold the encryption keys themselves, which means they can read your files and hand them over if compelled. Others use zero-knowledge encryption, where only you hold the keys. Our cloud storage guides compare free space, price per terabyte, and privacy so you can match a service to how you actually use it, whether that is documents, a photo library, or a backup of everything.

File sharing and transfer

Email was never built for big files. Gmail, Outlook, and Yahoo all cap attachments at around 25 MB, and Apple's iCloud Mail stops at 20 MB. Once a file crosses that line you need a share link or a transfer service instead. Our file sharing guides walk through sending large files past the email limit, moving data between a phone and a computer, and picking a transfer tool by the one thing that matters most to you: the free size limit, how long the link lasts, or whether the transfer is encrypted end to end.

File security

Storing files online adds convenience and a new set of risks: weak passwords, account takeover, and the flood of fake "your storage is full" emails that the FTC has warned about. Good security is mostly a short checklist. Turn on two-factor authentication, use a long unique password, and encrypt anything sensitive before it leaves your computer. Our security guides explain the real risks in plain terms, show you how to spot the common scams, and walk through encrypting a file with tools that are already on your machine or free to download.

How we stay honest

We are a publication, not a service. We do not sell storage, we are not paid to rank one provider above another, and we say so on every page. When a provider changes a price or a limit, the figure on our page goes stale, so we date what we publish and link you to the source to confirm. The historic freefilehosting.net file-hosting service is no longer running; this site continues the name as an independent guide to the tools that replaced it.