There are many cloud file-sharing tools that help us cover distances and overcome the natural barriers of each platform. However, in the vast majority of cases, users can only know the content after downloading. VisualTransfer is a new free service that, besides enabling transfers of up to five gigabytes, has an excellent visual component to recognize and classify files before downloading them.
The Same Old Problem
The story is more or less the same every time: I want to share a file that is too large for email, the recipient can't view it on a mobile device, Google Docs gets a bit picky with public access permissions, or another failure arises mysteriously arises that ruins all plans. It should be simple to share files, and in theory it is... but practice usually has the habit of tearing down theory with the delicacy of a slingshot. That's when the cloud comes to the rescue. A while ago we talked about different online services that allow us to share large files without creating accounts or facing strange registration processes. Some have fallen by the wayside, and others have become too complicated to recommend for frequent use.
What Makes VisualTransfer Different
None of those two situations represents VisualTransfer. This young service has been developed by the minds of VisualBox, a professional system focused on sharing and distributing content, optimizing communication between companies and their clients. VisualTransfer has been officially presented as a “Spanish-style WeTransfer”, although in reality it goes much further. VisualTransfer takes certain elements from VisualBox, especially its attention to visual components. In the past, some services have sinned by not providing enough context and betting everything on the user's intuition, but VisualTransfer easily escapes that detail. Its operation is reduced to a few steps: Choose the files we want to share, add all the email addresses that should receive them, enter our data accompanied by a message, and press “Send”.
The person who shares the files also receives an alert when someone enters the virtual box. However, VisualTransfer doesn't end there. When recipients receive the email, they will enter a kind of virtual box that contains all the shared files, published with thumbnail previews. Downloading a file to view it is not a problem if its size is small, but if what has been shared amounts to hundreds of megabytes, honestly it makes no sense to download everything. VisualTransfer neutralizes that inconvenience by allowing the user to view files before downloading, giving them a greater level of flexibility. The maximum limit when sharing is five gigabytes and ten files. Those who are worried about privacy should know that virtual boxes are automatically deleted after thirty days.
The only technical detail to mention is a slight problem with the date that appears in the virtual box (at least, that is what happened during my test), and it would be interesting if they could enable HTTPS support for the links to the boxes, but these are things that will surely be incorporated over time. VisualTransfer has no cost at all, does not require creating accounts, nor downloading additional software such as toolbars or plugins. The five-gigabyte limit puts it above options like WeTransfer (2 GB on free accounts), and of course, it's always nice to see solid Spanish development that lives up to what the market demands.
