Shareboxed
Every file sharing service works the same way underneath: you upload a copy, the service stores it, the recipient downloads it. That copy is the product, and it is also the problem. It costs storage, it takes time to upload, and it exists somewhere you do not control.
A direct share in Shareboxed skips the copy. Your Mac becomes the storage: the link opens a page that connects to your machine and streams the files from your disk to the recipient's browser, encrypted end to end. No byte and no file name ever reaches our servers. We only know that a share exists, not what is in it.
What that buys you
- No upload. Sharing a 60 GB folder of footage takes as long as making a link, because nothing moves until someone downloads.
- No size limit. There is no storage to fill, so there is nothing to cap.
- Nothing to trust. The file list and the files travel encrypted with a
key that lives in the link itself, in the part after the
#that browsers never send to any server. Even the relay, when one is needed, sees only encrypted traffic.
What it costs you
Honesty first: your Mac is the server, so your Mac has to be awake and online while the share is live. Close the lid and the download pauses until you are back. A direct share also lives seven days, like every Shareboxed share, and the app keeps it available across restarts for that week.
On networks that block direct connections, the transfer falls back to a relay we run. Direct transfers are free at any size; only relayed bytes count against a Shareboxed+ allowance, and you can switch the relay off entirely if you want the guarantee that nothing ever leaves the two machines.
When to use which
Use a direct share for the huge folder, the sensitive folder, or the moment you do not want a copy existing anywhere else. Use a hosted share when the recipient should be able to download while your Mac sleeps. Both come out of the same right-click in Finder, and both produce the same kind of link.