How to Send a 100GB File
BoltShare Team · Last reviewed
A 100 GB file is big enough that the usual tools stop working. Email gives up at around 25 MB, and most free cloud plans cap a single transfer at a few gigabytes. Even paid plans can take an afternoon to upload that much before the other person can start downloading.
This page covers how long a 100 GB transfer really takes, which methods hold up at that size, and how to send it with BoltShare without it failing at 80%.
How long will it take?
Your upload speed decides the time, not your download speed. Most home connections upload far slower than they download, so check your upload number on a speed test first. (We explain why this matters so much in upload speed is the real bottleneck.)
100 GB is about 800,000 megabits. Divided by your upload speed, that gives a best-case time:
| Upload speed | Best-case time for 100 GB |
|---|---|
| 10 Mbps | about 22 hours |
| 20 Mbps | about 11 hours |
| 50 Mbps | about 4.5 hours |
| 100 Mbps | about 2.2 hours |
| 500 Mbps | about 27 minutes |
| 1 Gbps | about 13 minutes |
Real transfers usually take 10–30% longer than this because of protocol overhead, Wi-Fi interference and the other person’s connection. If either side is on Wi-Fi, a cable can make a big difference.
Your options at this size
Cloud upload services (WeTransfer, Google Drive, Dropbox and similar). You upload the whole file, then the receiver downloads it. That means the data crosses the internet twice, and the receiver can’t start until your upload is done. In return, the receiver can download whenever they like and you can switch your computer off. For 100 GB you’ll almost always need a paid plan.
Shipping a drive. If your upload is under about 10 Mbps, or you need to send several hundred gigabytes, a USB SSD in the post can genuinely be faster. It’s also the only option that works without a good connection at either end.
Sync tools (rsync, Resilio Sync, Syncthing). These are the right choice if you send large folders to the same person regularly, because they only send the parts that changed. Both people need to install and set them up.
A live browser transfer (BoltShare). The file streams from your device to the receiver’s while you both have the page open. Nothing is uploaded first, so the receiver’s download starts immediately and finishes at the same time as your send. There’s no size limit and no account. The catch is that both of you must stay online until it’s done.
Before you start a 100 GB send
- Check the receiver’s free space. They need a bit more than 100 GB free on the drive their Downloads folder is on.
- Use a desktop browser on both ends. Chrome, Edge and Firefox stream the file straight to disk as it arrives. Phones, iPhones in particular, are not a good place to receive a file this size.
- Plug both computers in and turn off sleep. A laptop going to sleep is the most common reason a long transfer stops. Our guide to keeping a transfer running has the exact settings for Windows, Mac, Android and iPhone.
- Send a folder as one transfer. If the 100 GB is many files, you can send them together and they arrive as a single ZIP. See how to send a whole folder.
Sending it with BoltShare
- Open BoltShare and drop the file (or files) onto the page.
- Leave Bolt Tunnel selected. It’s the default, it works on almost any network, and if either connection drops it reconnects and picks up from the last byte the receiver confirmed. Direct P2P is also available if you’d rather the data never passes through a relay.
- Send the link or QR code to the receiver.
- Keep the tab open on both sides until the receiver’s progress bar reaches 100%.
After it arrives
For a file this size it’s worth confirming it arrived intact, especially before deleting the original. Comparing a SHA-256 checksum on both machines takes a few minutes. Our checksum guide shows the one-line command for Windows, Mac and Linux.