Upload files without registering

Yes, you can upload files without registering. Plenty of services will take a file from you and hand back a link before they know anything about who you are. The ones that do ask for an account are usually asking because they want your email address, not because the upload technically needs one.

So the question worth answering is not whether you can skip the sign-up. It is what you lose when you do.

I have spent about a decade sending decks, proposals and one-pagers in growth roles, and most of the time I did not want another login. I wanted the file to be somewhere the other person could click. That is the entire job. But the no-account route quietly takes something away from you, and it is almost always the thing you find you needed three days later, when you are sat there wondering whether the file ever got opened.

The services that genuinely let you upload without an account

Smash

Smash is the one to reach for when the file is big and the deadline is today. No sign-up on the free tier, no email required, and the free transfer caps at 2GB before it starts queueing behind paying customers. Links stay live for seven days. That seven-day window is the bit people forget: if you send a Smash link on a Friday and your contact goes on holiday, your file is gone by the time they look. Smash's pricing page lays out the paid tiers if you need a longer window.

WeTransfer

WeTransfer is the one everyone already knows how to receive. Its own homepage still describes it as a way to "send your files around the world without an account", and that reputation is worth something in itself: nobody on the receiving end has to work out what they are looking at. The free ceiling has moved around a fair bit over the years, so check the current cap on wetransfer.com before you rely on it for anything large.

file.io

file.io goes the other way and makes the disappearing act the point. Five gigabytes per file on the free tier, no account, and the file is destroyed the moment it has been downloaded once. Fourteen days is the default expiry if nobody ever collects it. That is either exactly what you want or a disaster, depending on whether the person you sent it to knows to save a copy. Assume they do not. Someone clicking your link on their phone to check it is the right file has just spent your one download.

Your own website

The option most people forget. If you already have a site with a /public folder or a CMS that accepts uploads, dropping a PDF in and linking to it is free, permanent, and does not involve registering anywhere new. It is not glamorous. It works.

The two that do need an account

You will notice Google Drive and Dropbox are missing from the list above. Both need an account to upload, even though neither needs one to receive. Dropbox gives you 2GB free on its Basic plan and Google gives you 15GB across your whole account, which is a lot more generous than the transfer services, but you are making an account either way. If you are already logged into one of them, this whole question is moot and you should just use it. I have written more on the file to URL route if that is closer to what you are after.

Skipping the account means skipping the receipt

When you upload files without registering, there is no dashboard afterwards. There is no record that the transfer happened, no way to revoke the link if you sent it to the wrong person, and no way to answer the only question that actually matters once the file has left: did they open it?

For a photo of a broken boiler going to a plumber, who cares. For a proposal with your pricing in it, that gap is expensive. I used to send a deck on a Friday afternoon and then spend the whole weekend guessing whether anyone had read past slide two. Not knowing is not neutral. It changes what you do on Monday, usually for the worse, because you either chase too hard or you sit on your hands.

The other thing you lose is control. An anonymous upload link is a permanent, forwardable, uneditable object until it expires. You cannot pull it back. You cannot swap in the corrected version after you spot the typo on page four. If you have ever sent a proposal with the wrong client name in it, you will understand why that matters more than the 2GB limit does. I have covered the privacy side of this properly in anonymous document sharing, because "no account" and "actually private" are not the same thing and the difference catches people out.

When no account is the right call

Most of the time the anonymous upload is correct, and the moment it is correct is when the file is disposable. A photo for a plumber, a one-off asset for a freelancer, a zip of holiday pictures for your mum. Anything where the download is the end of the story. Making an account for that is admin for no reason.

The line is roughly this: if you would be annoyed to find out the file was never opened, you needed an account.

When the document is doing a job, make the account

The moment there is money or a decision attached to it, the calculation flips. You have gone from moving a file to sending a message, and a message has to be received to have worked.

That is why LiveDocument exists. You upload a PDF or an image, record a short video walking through it, and share the PDF as a link with the walkthrough attached. The reader gets your voice explaining the document instead of a silent file, they can click a highlight to jump the video to the bit that explains it, and you get page-level analytics showing what they read and what they went back to. You can expire or revoke the link if the deal dies.

Being fair about it: you have to make an account, so it is precisely not the answer to the question in the title of this post. It is not storage, it is not a PDF editor, and if you need to move a 4GB video, use Smash and do not think about us at all. If what you actually want is an alternative to WeTransfer for documents that matter, start there.

FAQ

Can you upload files without registering and still get a permanent link?

Not usually. Free anonymous uploads are near-universally time-limited: seven days on Smash, fourteen on file.io by default. If you need a link that survives longer than a fortnight, either host the file on your own site or use a service where you have an account and can see what is still live.

Is uploading a file without an account anonymous?

Less than people assume. No login does not mean no logs. Most services record the uploading IP address and keep it for a while, and the link itself can be forwarded to anyone. Treat "no registration" as convenience, not privacy.

Can I tell if someone opened a file I uploaded without registering?

No, and this is the main thing you are trading away. Anonymous uploads have no analytics attached because there is no account for them to report to. If you need to know whether a document was read, you need a tool that identifies you as the sender, which means sharing the PDF as a tracked link instead.

What is the largest file I can upload without an account?

file.io is the most generous of the common options at 5GB per file on its free tier. Smash allows 2GB before your transfer starts queueing behind paid ones. Limits shift, so check the service's own page before you commit to it for something time-critical.

Uploading files without registering is fine right up to the point where the file is doing a job for you. Past that, you want to know it landed. That is the whole reason LiveDocument exists, and there is a live example if it is a problem you keep hitting.