Upload a file

The steps

1. Go to Files and choose Upload, or drag a file onto the page.
2. Watch the progress bar. Large files move in 5MB pieces, so the bar advances in visible steps rather than smoothly.
3. When it finishes, the file appears in your list with its size and the date.

Why it uploads in pieces

Sending a large file as one request is fragile: a single dropped connection loses the lot, and shared hosting refuses very large requests outright. Each 5MB piece is sent, encrypted and appended separately, which keeps memory bounded and means a wobbly connection costs you one piece rather than the whole file.

Leave the tab open

The upload runs in the page. Closing the tab, locking a phone or letting it sleep will stop it part way. An interrupted upload leaves a partial session that is cleaned up automatically after two hours; you will not be charged storage for it, but you do need to start that file again.

One at a time is the reliable way

You can have up to ten uploads open at once. On a home connection, running one at a time finishes sooner than running ten, because they are all sharing the same upload bandwidth and each one is more likely to time out.

Storage is checked as you go

Your quota counts both the files you have stored and the bytes already sent for uploads still in progress, so ten simultaneous uploads cannot slip past the limit between them. If an upload is refused for space, delete something or move up a plan and start again.