What is WeTransfer's free file size limit?

Around 3 GB per transfer on the free tier, but that is not the binding constraint. Free accounts are metered on a rolling 30-day window — roughly 10 transfers or 3 GB in total, whichever you hit first — and files are held for only a few days before deletion. Numbers move, so confirm on wetransfer.com before you plan around them.

How do I send a file bigger than the WeTransfer limit?

Four options, in the order I would try them. Compress or trim the file, because half the 4 GB exports I see contain an uncompressed master nobody asked for. Split it across two transfers. Use a service with a bigger free ceiling, such as SwissTransfer. Or pay for a plan — WeTransfer's top tier goes to 1 TB per transfer, and other tools have no hard cap at all.

How long do WeTransfer links last?

A few days on the free tier — currently three — and longer on paid plans, where the top tier lets you choose a custom expiry. The short free window catches people out more often than the size limit does, because the file expires while the client is on holiday and you end up re-uploading twenty gigabytes to fix a scheduling problem.

Does WeTransfer compress my files?

No. Files arrive byte-identical to what you uploaded. Multiple files are bundled into a zip for download, which is a container rather than compression, so a folder of already-compressed video will download at essentially the size you sent. Nothing is re-encoded or degraded in transit.

Is the WeTransfer limit per file or per transfer?

Per transfer. You can send several files at once as long as their combined size stays under the ceiling, and they arrive as one zip. This is why zipping before you upload changes nothing about whether you fit — the cap is on the total, not the file count.

WeTransfer's File Size Limit in 2026 (Free and Paid)

Free is about 3 GB per transfer, but the cap that stops you is the rolling 30-day allowance underneath it. Every plan, and the ways round it.

The number you came for: about 3 GB per transfer on the free tier, and up to 1 TB per transfer on WeTransfer’s top plan.

Now the number that actually stops people, which is not on the homepage.

The cap underneath the cap

Since WeTransfer reorganised its plans, free accounts are metered on a rolling 30-day window rather than just a per-send size. In practice that is around 10 transfers or 3 GB in any 30 days — whichever you reach first.

Read that twice, because it changes the maths completely. Under the old model, ten 2 GB sends in a month was ten free transfers. Under the current one, your second send can be the one that stops you.

There is a third limit that catches more people than either of those: how long the link lives. On free, that is a few days. Files are deleted afterwards, permanently, and the recipient sees an expired page rather than a download.

That is the limit that generates the actual disaster. Not “I can’t send this” — you find that out immediately, at your desk, and deal with it. It is “they tried to download it on Monday and it was gone”, which you find out on Monday, from an annoyed client, with the twenty gigabytes you need to re-upload sitting on a drive at home.

Every plan, as of September 2026

Plan	Per transfer	30-day allowance	Link life
Free	~3 GB	~10 transfers or 3 GB	A few days (currently 3)
Starter	~3 GB	~10 transfers or 300 GB	Same short window
Ultimate	Up to 1 TB	Unlimited transfers	Custom expiry
Teams	Up to 1 TB	Unlimited transfers	Custom expiry, plus admin controls

Two things worth noticing.

Starter buys allowance, not size. It lifts the monthly ceiling substantially while leaving the per-transfer cap and the short expiry roughly where free left them. If your problem is this one file is too big, Starter does not solve it, and a lot of people find that out after paying.

The jump to Ultimate is where the features are. Password protection, custom expiry, branded pages and access controls all live up there. That is a real product. It is also a real price, and it is worth being honest with yourself about whether you need 1 TB transfers or whether you need a password and an expiry date — because those two things are cheap elsewhere.

WeTransfer publishes the current figures on its plan limits page, and I would check it rather than trust this table in six months. These have changed twice in two years.

Four ways round the limit

1. Make the file smaller. Unglamorous, and it works more often than anyone admits. A ProRes master where an H.264 review copy would do. A 400 MB PDF because someone dropped in 40-megapixel photography at full resolution. A folder with three exports of the same deck in it. Before you shop for a bigger pipe, check what you are actually pushing through it.

2. Split it. Two transfers of 2.5 GB beat one failed 5 GB attempt, and the recipient does not care. Under a rolling transfer count, though, splitting costs you twice — so this works on paid tiers and works against you on free.

3. Use a bigger free ceiling. SwissTransfer sends up to 50 GB with no account, hosted in Switzerland. TransferNow and Filemail sit around 5 GB free with no sign-up. If the job is genuinely “get these bytes to that person once”, these are better than paying WeTransfer. The wider comparison is here.

4. Stop sending the file at all. For anything that gets read rather than edited — a proposal, a report, a brochure, a deck — the file was never the point. A link opens on a phone, cannot be too big for an inbox, updates without a resend, and tells you when it was read. The case for links over attachments is here, and it removes this entire category of problem for a large fraction of what most people send.

The question the size limit distracts you from

Every article about this ends at “here is how to send a bigger file”, and that is the shallow end of it.

If you are sending large files to clients for a living, the interesting constraints are not measured in gigabytes:

Can you set how long the link lives? A fortnight covers a holiday. Three days does not.
Can you kill a link after sending? Everybody sends the wrong cut eventually.
Do you know when it was collected, and by whom? Not a view count. A name.
Whose brand is on the download page? Right now, on the free tier, it is not yours.

Those are the things that make a delivery feel like it came from a studio rather than from a browser tab. The gigabyte ceiling is just the one that shows up first.

For what it’s worth, this is the gap we built Transfers into: sends of 10 GB on Agency and 25 GB on Agency Pro, an expiry you choose between one and fourteen days, a password if you want one, instant revoke, a receipt when it lands — and a download page wearing your client’s brand rather than anyone else’s. It is coming soon, included with the Agency plans rather than sold as a second subscription.

I’m Richard, and I build Living Page — document delivery for agencies and freelancers who send client work for a living. See how Transfers works, or compare the plans.