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Sending Us Sensitive Material

When you need to send personal data, leaked material, or sensitive collaboration files to a community member, and you want the transfer to stay out of reach of anyone who does not need to see it, the steps below give you a link that expires on its own and leaves nothing behind.

Upload steps

  1. Go to Send, one of the services the community self-hosts.
  2. Select the file you want to upload.
  3. Set the expiry options: one download, expiring after 7 days.
  4. Tick Protect with password and enter a password you have agreed on separately with the recipient.
  5. Confirm the settings and click Upload.

The upload produces a share link. Copy it and send it to the recipient to complete the transfer.

The password matters more than it looks. A Send link on its own is a bearer token: anyone who obtains it can download the file. Agree on the password through a different channel from the one carrying the link, so that compromising one channel is not enough.

Send is a lightweight self-hosted file sharing application. It shares files under end-to-end encryption and hands out links that expire on their own. That design keeps the transfer private and stops the file from living permanently on the web or inside a mail service.

Walkthrough

Go to Send.

Step 1

Select the file, set the expiry parameters, and submit.

Step 2

Copy the link and send it to the recipient.

Step 3

When Send is not the right tool

Send runs on infrastructure the community operates, which means you are trusting us with the fact that a transfer happened, even though the file contents are encrypted in your browser before upload. For most collaboration material that trade-off is fine. Two cases where it is not:

  • Anonymity from the recipient or from us: use OnionShare over Tor instead. It serves the file directly from your own machine through an onion service, so no third party holds the file at any point.
  • Risk if the transfer itself were discovered: raise it in Matrix first without the details, so we can agree on a channel before anything moves. Contact routes are on the Community services page.
  • Community services covers the rest of our self-hosted infrastructure, including how to request a Matrix or CryptPad account.
  • Governance charter sets out how the community handles disclosure and disputes.