Need to share a hefty 10 MB image file with a colleague across the country? It’s not as easy as it sounds.
Sure, you could try sending it over email, hoping all the while that the giant attachment doesn’t bounce on the other end. Or you could try a file-sharing application like Dropbox—assuming you’ve already installed it and registered for an account, of course.
Or, you could try this: Drag the file into a web browser, copy and paste a tiny download link into an email, and hit “send”—no registration or setup required.
That’s the idea behind Minus, a dead-simple file sharing site that lets you start dragging and dropping from the word go.
Minus has been around for about a year but began hitting its stride in the past month or so (the site only recently moved from Min.us to Minus.com), and I’m hooked.
Just take the file you want to share, then drag it and drop it onto the Minus.com web site.
Using the site is incredibly easy. Just visit Minus.com, take the file you want to share and drag it onto the spartan Minus home page; the file (an image, MP3, PDF, a text file, you name it) will begin uploading automatically.
Once the uploading process is completed, a trio of links will appear under the jumbo-sized preview of your file: one for sharing the file using a short URL (which you could easily send over email or IM), another that lets you “embed” the file onto a web page, and a third for downloading the file back onto your desktop.
Need to share more files? Just drag and drop them onto the Minus.com site—all in a big batch, if you like. The only limitation is that each file must be smaller than 100 MB, although that limit doubles to 200 MB once you set up your own Minus account.
Once you've uploaded a file to Minus, you can share it using a tiny download link.
Now, if you happen to be feeling social, you can share your files publicly and allow other Minus users to “follow” you, à la Twitter.
But don’t worry—you don’t have to if you don’t want to, and all file sharing is set to “private” by default.
Minus also offers a more traditional, downloadable desktop application (similar to competitors like Dropbox), as well as apps for Android and iPhone.
So, can you share anything on Minus—even highly personal or sensitive documents? For its part, Minus swears that it will keep your uploads anonymous, and that private files won’t be shared with anyone you don’t send a link to.
That said, always use caution when using a file-sharing service like Minus or Dropbox. Snapshots of the family vacation are probably fine, but your tax return? Hmmm. Better safe than sorry.
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