How to send large photo files to clients

Ten gigabytes of finished photographs is an awkward size. It is far too big to email, big enough that consumer file-sharing tools start charging or expiring, and small enough that it feels like it should be easy. Here is what each of the usual options actually does.

WhatsApp: convenient, and it destroys the files

Sending photographs through WhatsApp as ordinary images recompresses them heavily — a 12 MP frame typically arrives around 100 KB, resized and re-encoded. It is the fastest way to share a handful of pictures and the worst possible way to deliver a job.

WhatsApp does have a document mode, which sends the file unmodified. It works, and it is impractical at volume: there is a per-file size cap, no folder structure, and eight hundred documents in a chat is not a deliverable.

Use WhatsApp to send the link to a gallery. Egyptian and Gulf clients in particular will read a WhatsApp message and ignore an email, so the link belongs there — the photographs do not.

Google Drive and Dropbox: fine storage, awkward handover

A shared Drive folder does preserve your files exactly, which is the main thing. The problems are all at the edges:

• The folder counts against your storage quota for as long as you leave it shared, so every past job keeps costing you space.
• Downloading a large folder often means a zip generated on the fly, which fails on very large sets and cannot be resumed.
• Sharing permissions are all-or-nothing per folder. Giving one family only their own photographs means exporting and uploading a separate folder for them.
• The viewing experience is a file browser. It is slow to scroll on a phone and it looks like a spreadsheet of your work.

Perfectly usable for a client who is technical and patient. It is not a handover you would want to be judged on.

WeTransfer and similar: designed to expire

Transfer services move large files well and then delete them, which is the entire product. On the free tier a link typically lasts a few days. The failure mode is predictable and always the same: the couple opens it three weeks later on their honeymoon and it is gone, and you are re-uploading ten gigabytes.

It is a fine way to send a job to a second shooter or a magazine. It is not a way to deliver to a client who will come back to it.

A client gallery: what it changes

A gallery separates the two jobs that every option above conflates — browsing and downloading. Small previews, generated once, are what the client scrolls through on their phone. The original file is what arrives when they download. That is why a gallery can feel instant and still hand over 40 MB per frame.

What to check before choosing one, because they differ a great deal:

• Are downloads full resolution, and are they included? Some platforms meter download bandwidth or reserve originals for a higher tier. Ask before you commit a client to it.
• Does the link expire by default? Expiry should be something you choose per gallery, not something that happens to you.
• Can you scope access per group? One password for eight hundred photographs is a blunt instrument.
• How does it load on a phone on cellular? This is the real test, and the only way to run it is to open a real gallery on a real phone away from your wifi.
• What does it cost as your archive grows? Per-gallery pricing looks cheap for the first year and is not the shape of the problem.

Side by side

For a 10 GB wedding delivery:

• WhatsApp images — instant, recompressed to a fraction of the size. Not a delivery.
• WhatsApp documents — files intact, no structure, painful at volume.
• Email — impossible. Attachment limits are around 25 MB.
• Drive or Dropbox — files intact, permanent while you pay, clumsy to browse and to scope.
• WeTransfer — files intact, quick, gone in days on the free tier.
• A client gallery — files intact, browsable on a phone, access you control per group. One more account to have.

What we would actually do

1. Deliver through a gallery, and send the link over WhatsApp because that is where it will be read.
2. Set a password on anything not meant to be public, and give individual families their own scoped links.
3. Tell the client to download everything and keep their own copy — see the handover checklist.
4. Keep your own masters and your own backup, whatever you deliver through.