Remote work
Upcoming changes regarding COVID-19
COVID-19 pushed much of the world into remote work almost overnight. Free Transfer has been used heavily during this period to share files, transfer files and send files secure between colleagues working from their homes. In this post we outline some changes we’re making to better support this way of working.
Adapting to sustained remote work
When lockdowns began, many people expected remote work to be a short‑term emergency measure. Over time it became clear that remote collaboration would remain a central part of how teams operate. This has consequences for the tools people rely on. File transfer is no longer an occasional task; it is a daily activity that must be reliable, secure and easy to repeat.
For Free Transfer, this means doubling down on stability and clarity. We are reviewing error handling, connection retries and status messages so that people who send files secure from home networks can understand what is happening even when their local Wi‑Fi or ISP behaves erratically.
Making transfers more resilient
Home networks are often less predictable than office connections. Family members share bandwidth, routers are older and interference is common. To address this, we are refining how Free Transfer handles timeouts and reconnections. The app will be more forgiving of short interruptions, giving peers time to recover without immediately cancelling transfers.
We are also improving the way we communicate issues, so that messages like “connection lost” are accompanied by suggestions such as “try moving closer to your router” or “pause other heavy downloads”. These hints help users take practical steps to keep their private file sharing sessions healthy.
Supporting flexible work hours
Remote work often blurs time zones and typical office hours. People may share files early in the morning or late at night. We are reviewing link expiration policies and considering options that make it easier to coordinate transfers across different schedules without leaving rooms open indefinitely.
The goal is to strike a balance: enough time for a recipient in another region to open the link, but not so much that temporary rooms linger for days. As always, we do this without storing file contents, focusing only on the minimal metadata necessary to manage rooms.