5 GB free500 GB with an account
Size is no longer the issue
Up to 5 GB per transfer, free and with no sign-up — enough to cover any scanned file or portfolio. With an account, the limit rises to 500 GB per transfer.
Send a large PDF by email or link
Is your PDF over the attachment limit? TransferNow sends it up to 5 GB for free, no sign-up required and with zero compression: your recipient gets the document exactly as sent, by email or through a download link.
- PDF · PDF/A
- Up to 5 GB free
- No sign-up
- No compression
Average rating after at least one transfer:
4.8750,000 votes
4.9 / 5 on Trustpilot and Google (20k+ reviews)
The problem
Why won’t your PDF go through by email?
Email services cap attachments: 25 MB at Gmail, 20 MB at Outlook — and often less on the recipient’s side, whose inbox may reject the message. Yet PDFs grow fast: a scanned file, a portfolio with high-resolution photos or a plan exported at print quality easily reach several hundred megabytes.
The classic workarounds all have a cost: compressing the PDF degrades the images and can make a scan unreadable; splitting it into several sends loses the pagination and multiplies the messages; dropping it on a drive often forces an account and permissions management on your recipient.
A dedicated transfer service avoids these compromises: the PDF leaves in a single send, in its original quality, and your recipient downloads it in one click — that’s exactly what TransferNow does, free up to 5 GB.
- Outlook attachment20 MB
- Gmail attachment25 MB
- TransferNow — free, no sign-up5 GB
- TransferNow — with an account500 GB
Logarithmic scale — the exact values are what counts.
The solutions
Four ways to send a large PDF
Not all methods are equal: what you gain in simplicity on one side, you pay in quality, time or friction for your recipient. Here is the honest comparison.
| Method | Max size | Quality | For the recipient |
|---|---|---|---|
| TransferNow (dedicated transfer)Recommended | 5 GB free · 500 GB with an account | Identical to the original | One click, no account |
| Compress the PDF | Capped by the attachment (20-25 MB) | Images and scans degraded | Classic attachment |
| Split into several sends | 20-25 MB per message | Intact but fragmented | Several emails to reassemble |
| Drive / cloud storage | Depends on the account quota | Identical to the original | Account or permissions often required |
The dedicated transfer: send the file as it is
You drop the PDF, you get a link or send it by email — that’s it. Up to 5 GB for free with no sign-up, document delivered exactly as sent, recipient free of any account. It’s the method we recommend as soon as the file exceeds the attachment limit.
Compression: useful, but double-edged
Cutting a PDF’s weight almost always means recompressing its images: on a scanned document or a portfolio, the result can become unreadable or unworthy of a client presentation. And if the file is 400 MB, no compression will get it under 25 MB without destroying it.
Splitting: friction on the recipient’s side
Splitting a PDF into parts sent in separate emails technically works, but your recipient has to download every piece, reassemble them in order and hope no message went to spam. For a contractual or paginated file, that’s risky.
The cloud: good for collaborating, heavy for handing over
Google Drive, OneDrive and Dropbox excel at working together on a living document. For a simple handover, they often force an account or permissions management on the recipient — and the link stays active until you remember to cut it.
Guide
How to send a large PDF by email or link?
- 1
Add your PDFs
Drag and drop one or more documents — complete folders accepted, up to 5 GB for free.
- 2
Choose email or link
Send directly to your recipients with a message, or generate a download link to share wherever you like.
- 3
Track delivery
You are notified on every download. The recipient grabs the PDF from their browser, no account needed.
With TransferNow
Built for your PDF documents
Original quality
No compression
Your PDF is delivered exactly as sent, byte for byte: no image recompression, no loss on scans or embedded fonts. What you send is what your recipient opens.
Password
Sensitive documents protected
Contracts, medical files, accounting records: protect the download with a password and share it through another channel. The transfer is encrypted along the entire route (SSL/TLS).
Antivirus
Security scanning
Before the download link goes live, files are scanned by an antivirus solution — your recipients open your PDFs with confidence.
Notifications
You know when it’s received
A notification on every download, tracked per recipient: no more chasing to find out whether the file arrived.
7 days · up to 365 days
Availability under control
The link stays active for up to 7 days for free. With an account, you pick the duration — up to 365 days — and can deactivate a transfer at any time.
The free tier, translated into real files
- ≈ 200×
- the Gmail attachment limit (25 MB)
- ≈ 2,500
- pages scanned in high quality
- ≈ 25
- 200 MB portfolios in a single transfer
- 500 GB
- per transfer with an account
Frequently asked questions
How large a PDF can I send for free?
Up to 5 GB per transfer, with no sign-up. That’s about 200 times the Gmail attachment limit (25 MB). With an account, the limit rises to 500 GB per transfer.
Is the PDF modified or recompressed during the transfer?
No. TransferNow applies no compression: the file received is strictly identical to the file sent — images, scans, signatures and embedded fonts included.
How do I send a confidential PDF securely?
Enable password protection when creating the transfer and share the password through another channel (text message, phone call). Files travel encrypted (SSL/TLS) and are scanned by antivirus before being made available.
Does my recipient need to install anything or create an account?
No. They receive a link, click, and download the PDF from their browser — on desktop or mobile, no sign-up required.
Why is my PDF so heavy?
In most cases, it’s the images: scanned pages, high-resolution photos or plans exported at print quality. A color scan at 300 dpi weighs around 2 MB per page — so a 100-page file already exceeds the attachment limit. Embedded fonts and layers add a few megabytes more.
Should I compress a PDF before sending it?
With a dedicated transfer service, no: up to 5 GB for free, the file goes through as is and the recipient gets it in its original quality. Compression is only justified if you absolutely must stay with an attachment — accepting the degradation of images and scans.
Can I send several PDFs at once?
Yes: add as many files as you need to the same transfer, or drag in an entire folder — everything goes out in a single link, within your plan’s size limit.
Also worth sending
Sending other types of files?
All file types5 GB per transfer for free, no sign-up