Share Link Invitations and URLs

A Share Link reaches its audience in one of three ways: an emailed invitation from your site, a raw URL you publish, or an embed in another web page. Each method has different security implications and different ways of identifying who used the link.

The Share Link URL

By default, Files.com generates a random alphanumeric URL key for your Share Links. This prevents bad actors from guessing the address of your links.

Site administrators control the Allow Share Links to use custom URLs setting, which determines whether users can change a Share Link's URL from the autogenerated address. When the setting is enabled, users who manage a Share Link can change its address to a new, unique text value. A custom URL produces a friendly name that is easier to share verbally or through marketing materials.

A custom URL is convenient, and it also carries a security risk: a guessable URL can be discovered the same way a common password can. Only site administrators have the option to enable this setting.

Descriptive Text for Your Visitors

The publicly visible description for a Share Link provides extra information or instructions to Share Link visitors. As a security measure, this setting supports Markdown formatting but not HTML.

Sending Email Invitations

Whenever you've enabled access control for your Share Links, you must invite recipients to the link via emailed invitations generated by the Files.com platform. Enabling access control helps to secure your link against unwanted access by people you did not intend.

Even if a Share Link doesn't require access control, sending email invitations to specific contacts allows you to track whether your expected contacts have used the link by reviewing the list of outstanding invitation recipients.

When you send email invites, you can direct it to 50 different email addresses at once. Share Groups allow you to define re-usable lists of recipients to make inviting those recipients more efficient.

Your site includes a generous limit on the number of email invitations that can be sent for a Share Link each hour. In the unlikely event that you receive an error about exceeding those limits, you can try again later. If you believe you are receiving the error when you should not be, contact our support team for assistance.

One Invitation Email Per Recipient Per Day

Invitation emails for Share Links can only be sent one time every 24 hours to each recipient, even if you invite the same person to the link repeatedly.

Inviting someone to a Share Link more than once within 24 hours will not generate new emails. This prevents people from receiving repeat emails that they would experience as spam, and it reduces the number of emails that could fall into the wrong hands.

Directly inviting someone more than once to your Share Link with an invitation email is different from an automatically re-sent invitation generated when an access-controlled link is opened in a new browser.

Email Invitation Reply-To Addresses

When you send email invitations, the email address of the user who is sending the invitation will be used as the reply-to address for the emails. This is true even if you have customized your SMTP settings with a specific reply-to address for notification emails.

Access Control and Forwarded Invitations

When Access Control is enabled, each invitation URL is bound to the first browser that opens it. If the invitation is forwarded, or the recipient opens it in a second browser, Files.com automatically generates a replacement email with a new URL. See Access Control for the full mechanics and worked examples.

Recipient Email Restrictions

Site administrators can block certain domains from receiving Share Link invitations using the Recipient email restrictions settings. See Recipient Email Restrictions for the details.

Embedding in a Web Page

Instead of (or in addition to) emailing invitations or publishing the URL, you can embed a Share Link directly in another web page. The embedded link transfers files securely no matter where it's embedded. See Embedding a Share Link Within a Web Page for the setup and the security implications.