How to send all your photos - when there's too many for email

You take a photo of your kids and want to send it to your parents – easy – email it…  two, three photos – email’s still fine.  But, what if you’ve been on holiday and want to send your photos to two sets of grandparents, your sister and best friend?  You could post them on Facebook (do your parents even use Facebook?) – but do you really know who can see your family photos?  You could upload them to an online photo sharing site (that can be sooo slow to upload) or set it up on a File Sharing service (but everyone may have to have that software).  What about the video of your child performing in the school musical? Your phone has a limit on the size of videos it can send and don’t even think about emailing that, unless you want a nasty email back – when the video finally gets through!  Or, how about a 40 page assignment you need to send to your teacher? 

I’ve got a solution…  Kicksend is a really easy way to send large numbers of photos, videos or files via the internet, mobile phone or from your computer.

It’s so easy to get started…

1.    Visit the Kicksend website and signup for free. 

2.    Add the email addresses of your family and friends who you want to send to.  You can even create groups of emails, so when you want to send some photos to your mothers group, for example, you just need to select Mothers Group from your list of recipients and the file will go to everyone in that group.

3.   You can run Kicksend from their website or, if you take lots of photos with your iPhone you can download the Kicksend app and send photos and videos directly from your iPhone (Android app coming soon)

Once it’s set up, sending files it ridiculously easy

1.   Select the files (photos, videos, documents) you want to send (maximum 150 MB from the website at a time, no limit on phone app), drag them over to the Kicksend window

2.   Choose who you want to send them to

3.   Send

With the free version you have a limit of 1 GB each month – that’s about 500 photos.  If you use it a lot you can pay for extra.  You can also download the Desktop app (for Windows and Mac), which means you have access to all the photos, videos and files stored on your computer. There’s also no limit to the size of the files you send using the desktop app.  I’ve used Kicksend to send an entire computer manual to a client.  Before Kicksend my only alternative would have been to deliver or post it – which also means I’ve saved on paper and printing costs.

On the other end – the recipient doesn’t have to have Kicksend – they will receive an email with a link to the file.  They then have three days to download it.  However, if they have Kicksend on their desktop the file is automatically downloaded for them; if they have the mobile app they will get an alert and they’ll be able to view the file on their phone as well. 

Regarding privacy – Kicksend is more of a delivery service than file storage.  They only store your files for a short time so they can be accessed by those you’ve sent them to, and then they are deleted.  Your photos, videos and files are only accessible by those you have sent them to.

There are other ways to send large numbers of photos, videos and files, but if you or the recipients are not that tech-savvy – Kicksend is by far the easiest one to use.