Some things SendXa does well, some it cannot do yet, and some we are working on. All three are here.
What it does
Everything here works today, with nothing to install.
How many files, and how large
Up to 32 GB per file. Up to 500 files per send, and you can select a whole batch at once. You can add or remove files while a transfer is open. The code stays the same, so nobody has to type anything again.
Receiving very large files
Chrome and Edge let you pick where the file goes before it starts, and write it straight to disk as it arrives. Free disk space is the only limit. Safari and Firefox do not offer that to web pages yet, so there the file has to sit in memory before it can be saved. For files of tens of gigabytes, receive on Chrome or Edge. The sending side can use any browser.
When the connection drops
The receiving side remembers how far it got and asks to continue from exactly there. A 20 GB file that breaks at minute 40 does not start over. On a flaky network the page reconnects by itself, up to 30 times. The Stop button only pauses: what arrived stays, and Continue picks it back up.
Sending both ways in one session
Whoever joins can put files in too, without opening a second session and reading out another set of numbers. Everything sits in one list, in the order it went in. Your own items sit to the right; other people's come with a download or copy button. Whoever added a row can remove it, and whoever opened the session can remove any of them and close the whole thing.
Several people receiving one send
One send can be open on several receiving devices at once. Each downloads on its own, and finished files get a tick. The sender sees how many devices are watching and how far each has got.
Reloading the page does not lose the session
Hit reload, or swipe the page away by mistake, and reopening puts you straight back in. The browser keeps that tab's ID, code and ticket, so nothing has to be typed again. Close the tab for good and it is gone, and your ticket does not work from another device.
Send a quick snippet of text or an image
Copy on this device, paste on the other one. Hit Copy text, Copy image, or just press ⌘V on the page. The other side does not have to hit download: anything under 4 MB arrives on its own, shows its content inline, and comes with a Paste button that puts it straight into that device's clipboard. Handy for bank details, one-time codes, long links, screenshots. A snippet travels the same path as a file, so it is not kept on the server either.
On a phone
Install the page to your home screen like an app. From there you can share files straight from Photos or Files into SendXa without opening a browser first. Incoming photos and videos save into your library; everything else lands in Downloads. Previewing a file inside the page is desktop only. On a phone, opening it in the app you already have works better.
The two browsers connect directly
When both networks allow it, files go straight from one device to the other and never touch our server. That route runs tens of times faster, and it now opens between two different networks, not only on a shared Wi-Fi. Over the last 30 days it carried 56% of files and 57% of bytes. The figures are on the stats page and update daily.
Sending a whole folder
Drag the folder onto the page instead of picking the files inside it. The tree survives: the receiving side sees photos/2026/beach.jpg, and two files with the same name in different subfolders stay distinct. Up to 6 levels deep.
Leaving files for 24 hours, and the other side fetching them on its own
Every file row has a cloud button. Press it and that file is written to our disk; the page asks first, and it never happens on its own. Afterwards the row carries a cloud mark on BOTH ends, plus a link of its own if you want to hand it to someone else. The link is not the point: the receiving side sees that mark, so when it cannot reach your machine — you closed the page, the machine slept, the network died — it switches to the server copy on its own and carries on from where it stopped. Nobody has to pass a link around. 500 MB per file, deleted after 24 hours.
Password-locking a file — SendXa does not do this
The page used to carry a Lock with my own password option; it was removed on 25 August 2026. It only worked on files under 100 MB, because a file has to fit in browser memory to be encrypted there — so it failed exactly on the large files that need it most. To lock a file, zip it with a password using 7-Zip, WinRAR or Compress on macOS and send the archive. No size limit, and we still cannot open it.
What makes it fast or slow
When a file does have to travel through our server in Singapore, the sender's UPLOAD speed sets the pace. Home connections usually download about ten times faster than they upload, so if the sender is slow, nothing the receiver does will speed it up. The direct route has no such ceiling.
What it does not do
Things SendXa will not do, or does worse than another tool.
The sending page has to stay open
A file only leaves your device at the moment the other side hits download. Closing the tab, shutting down or letting the machine sleep ends that send. If you need to send and then go to bed, press the cloud button on the file row before you do: the other side will fetch the server copy on its own once it cannot reach you.
The receiver has to be there
On the direct route files are not stored on our server, so both sides need to be online within the same window. A send lasts at most 12 hours, and in practice exactly as long as your page stays open. Leaving something for someone to grab a week later is a job for cloud storage.
Some networks still refuse the direct route
The two browsers ask our lookup server to find each other. On a tightly managed office network, or behind a router that changes port on every connection, they never meet and the file goes the long way through our server. That is about 44% of files today. Opening up the rest is work on our side, not a fault of your network.
Archives, custom codes
There is no zipping several files into one download. You cannot set your own code, change it partway, or choose when a send expires.
No accounts, so no history
There is nowhere to look up what you sent to whom, because we keep no user records at all. There is also no app to install: everything runs in the browser.
When to use something else
Two Apple devices in the same room: AirDrop is quicker. A file that has to sit somewhere for a week while a few people grab it: that is what cloud storage is for. And for 500 GB, carrying a drive across town still wins.
What needs work
What we are building next, in the order we think matters.
1. Opening the direct route on harder networks
The lookup server went up on 13 August 2026 and took the direct share to 56%. What is left are the networks where that approach is not enough, typically corporate ones and some mobile carriers. Next step is a relay server built for exactly those cases.
2. Changing the code partway
Letting the sender swap the code when someone is fishing for it, instead of closing the send and starting over.
Need something else?
This order follows what people actually ask for. If what you need is not on the list, tell us and it gets counted.