How to upload large files and send them by e-mail using rapidshare
September 8th, 2010This help file is how to create .zip files, and send large files over the Internet using Rapidshare.
You can use Rapidshare to send either large files, or many smaller files together in a zip file without it clogging up the e-mail system with multiple large files, it also means that you can send files that are larger than allowance for your e-mail client.
Why send large files this way?
The Internet is based on two types of resources: Server Disc space, and Internet bandwidth. If you have large files sitting on a server somewhere, that costs fractions of a penny to maintain. If you are a hosting company, those fractions of a penny add up. Bandwidth is also one of the defining factors of Internet technology, as it is a limit to how fast information can be sent. There are also costs involved in sending files, and sending a large single file over the Internet is difficult. In the days of dial up, sending a file over 1mb was very difficult, and if reception was poor, the file would be corrupted, and wouldn’t be sent correctly.
Now with broadband, information is sent digitally, which means files are sent quicker as the information is sent as pure data, rather than the inefficient medium of sound.
What this means is that while modern file transfer is much more efficient than dial up, it is still not perfect. Until we have perfect file transfer, to get round the limits of e-mail, rather than make e-mail better, hosting companies simply put limits on how large files can be sent.
For example, our hosting company has a limit of 10mb
When sending files by e-mail, the largest file that you can send in 10mb. Anything larger than this, you have two options: break the file down into smaller lumps, or use rapidshare:
Rapidshare has a file transfer limit of 200mb – this is a lot of pictures of people up ladders – or whatever you are sending.
The process is split up into:
1. Get images
2. Put them into a .zip file
3. Upload them
4. Send the link of the files
5. Sit back in satisfaction
Step 1: Get the images.
Ideally, when sending large amount of images I prefer o work with uncompressed .jpg files, or .png files, as these have the highest quality of image, which means that there is much more that we can do with the images.
PLEASE DO NOT SEND IMAGES AS .PDF FILES
These are extremely difficult to work with.
I would suggest that you make a folder (Ideally called something in a name relevant to the name of the image) and put the folder somewhere easy to remember, and shove the images and files in that folder – and nothing else, unless you want that sent too.
Step 2: Put images into a .zip file
Basically, a .zip file does two things:
1) It compresses the files down without losing any file quality.
For example, an MS Word document that is 20kb, is actually about 8kb of text information, and 12kb of information that says “This is an MS Word document”, this second part can be safely taken out, and put back in when the image is uncompressed. This means that the files can be safely compressed without losing image quality. This saves bandwidth, and shortens uploading and downloading time, which is quite useful.
2) The main reason to use a .zip file for this operation is because it collects a large number of files together, and then you can send them all as one file, which is much easier to deal with.
| Making .zip files
If you have put the images into a single folder, then you can right click on the folder, and then click on “Send to”, then “Compressed (zipped) Folder”. If not, then you will have to select all the files that you want to put into a .zip file, then right click on one of the files, and follow the same process. Please note, this help file was based on Windows XP. The process should be similar for your computer, but details may be different. |
Selecting files to use for a zip file
Step 3: Upload the files
Here comes the difficult bit.
a. Go to http://www.rapidshare.com/
b. Click on “Browse”
c. Find the .zip file that you created in step 2. Select the .zip file, and click open. This will tell Rapidshare that this is the file that you want to upload.
d. Assuming that worked, click on the cunningly labeled “Upload” button
Step 4: Send the link of the files
The way that Rapidshare works is it uploads the files to their system so that you can send a text link via e-mail, then people on the other end can click on the link and download the file from the Rapidshare server.
The people you are sending the files to need to have the information in the red box (1). The formatting doesn’t matter, so you can send the link in a text only e-mail.
The Blue box (2) contains a link whereby the files sent can be deleted.
If you only want to send these files once, please send a file delete link along with the download link.
Advanced information
If you read the introduction, you will know that there are limited amounts of resources for hosting companies. Rapidshare only gives out a free service because they know that a certain number of people will buy the paid version. As long as the costs of the free version are lower than the income from the paid version, they have a viable business model.
They offer incentives to get the paid version, such as faster transfer, less waiting, more file downloads from the same link.
If you only use the free version, please send the file delete link because once the other person has downloaded the file, they can delete it, saving those fractions of a penny for Rapidshare which makes their enterprise that bit more profitable, so they will continue to offer this service for free.
Step 5: Sit back in satisfaction
Do I really have to tell you how to do that?