It’s time to send your files to your vendor. You zip up your files into a neat .zip package and it is 40GB! Uh oh! Your email client won’t allow you to send a 40gb file! What to do? Fortunately online file transfer services are on the rise and there are a number of options available.

YouSendIt, Dropbox, and SendSpace each offer a solution to get your larger file to where it needs to be. While these companies also specialize in a number of other solutions, below is a comparison of the features and benefits specific to their free-of-charge, large file transfer service.

YouSendIt Lite
YouSendIt is the most popular file transfer service available. Their free, registration-required membership allots 100MB of transfer space. Only one file may be transferred at a time — a hurdle quickly surmounted with a .zip package. There are a number of plug-ins that allow files to be sent directly from most commonly used applications such as Outlook, Acrobat, and Photoshop. To send a file you may login to you YouSendIt online or from the desktop application, complete a standard email form, and attach your large file. The recipient receives an email with a link to a YouSendIt download page. Alternatively you may simply copy and paste this link into an email and send via your regular email client — without using the YouSendIt email form. The file is hosted for 7 days then taken down. Advanced security and a return receipt are available on a pay-per-use basis. A 1 GB per month download limit is free with this level of subscription.

SendSpace Lite
SendSpace works much like YouSendIt, but registration is not required. The limit on file sending is 300MB per file, with up to 5 files allowed per delivery instance. By registering you are able to track the number of downloads per file. Files expire if they are not downloaded for 30 days. Like YouSendIt, you may either use their email form to send the link to your recipient or simply send the link to the download page. Watch out though, the SendSpace download page is noisy with animated ads, and often times the emails sent from SendSpace are interpreted as spam.

Dropbox
This company’s primary business is file syncing, but with their free membership comes a snazzy way of delivering files quickly. Dropbox works as a virtual online storage space accessible via a shortcut installed across any number of your personal or work computers. Upon registering and dowloading the application, the Dropbox folder is installed directly on the desktop. If are online, anything transferred into this folder is automatically synced with your global Dropbox account. Subfolders can be shared from the Dropbox folder by sending an invite to new or registered users. To send files to someone without a Dropbox account, simply place the file in the “Public” folder of your Dropbox directory. With a right-click on the file, you may copy the public, downloadable link to this file and send to your intended recipient. The file size limitation is 2GB total for your entire Dropbox. Controlling the file expiration is done by removing the file from the Dropbox directory.

Each company provides a free service aimed at getting your large files where they need to be. In addition to the lite membership levels there are several subscriptions tiers for each, allowing increasingly larger file space, security options, and other enhanced features.

If file expiration control and larger file size is your primary concern, the Dropbox option may be for you. If unlimited downloads and trackablility are paramount, SendSpace may be the way to go. And if ease of transfer from your commonly used applications such as Outlook and Acrobat is what you desire, be sure to check out at YouSendIt.