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YouSendIt gets desktop help

Now it's easier to upload to the YouSendIt transfer server. Too bad it's still expensive.

Rafe Needleman Former Editor at Large
Rafe Needleman reviews mobile apps and products for fun, and picks startups apart when he gets bored. He has evaluated thousands of new companies, most of which have since gone out of business.
Rafe Needleman
2 min read

I've found that I frequently use the large file transfer service YouSendIt to send big files, videos, scans, and pictures. And I've taken to recommending the service to others when I hear about a problem getting a file from one place to another. That's rare--usually the Web services I like the most are a bit too rickety to recommend to people with real lives and jobs.

But one thing about YouSendIt has always bugged me: the need to go to the browser to upload a file for transfer. I hate browser uploaders. Fortunately, the company just released a desktop app, YouSendIt Express, that lets you drag files from your system into it, from which it will then upload the file to the transfer service. And if your connection drops, it will resume the upload when it can. It's available for PC and Mac.

The company also has a plug-in for Outlook, which makes perfect sense. Except I have yet to meet an Outlook plug-in that doesn't somehow degrade the mail application itself. So, I haven't tried it and I have no intention to.

I do wish YouSendIt's pricing structure for occasional users was more reasonable. The free service is very limited, but what do you want for nothing? The problem is that the lowest-cost paid account is $9.99 a month. I'd like to see a per-use fee or a much cheaper monthly fee. For occasional use, $120 a year is just too steep.

But it's still a great app.

YouSendIt is a Webware 100 finalist. See all the products in its category.