Share links vs sharing with a person: which to use when

Almost every cloud storage service offers two ways to let someone else see a file. The first is a link: you copy it, send it however you like, and whoever has it can open the file. The second is sharing with a person: you type their email address, pick what they are allowed to do, and the file appears in their account.

People tend to pick one and use it for everything. That works until it does not. This article is about which to use when, and why the difference matters more than it looks.

What a share link actually is

A share link is a secret URL. Anyone who has the URL can open what it points to. The service does not know or care who they are.

That is the whole appeal and the whole risk. The appeal is that the recipient needs nothing: no account, no sign-in, no app. You can paste the link into an email, a text message, a client portal or a printed letter. The risk is that the link works for anyone, so it works for whoever the recipient forwards it to, whoever finds it in a shared inbox, and whoever sees it over their shoulder.

Good services let you tighten a link:

• Password: the link alone is not enough; the viewer also needs the password, which you send separately.
• Expiry date: the link stops working after a date you choose.
• Download on or off: viewers can look in the browser but cannot save a copy. This is a deterrent, not a lock, since a determined person can always screenshot.
• Direct link: a version of the URL that points straight at the file, useful for embedding an image or video in a web page.

With Onlinedrive, all of these are options in the Share dialog when you create a link. There is a separate article on the first two: Password-protected and expiring links.

What sharing with a person actually is

When you share with a person by email, you are granting access to an identity. The recipient signs in to their own account to see the file. You choose whether they can only view or also edit. You can see who has access, and you can remove any one of them without affecting the others.

The recipient needs an account, which is a small amount of friction. In exchange you get three things a link cannot give you:

1. You know who has access. The list is right there. If someone leaves the project, you remove them.
2. It cannot be forwarded. They can download and send the file on, of course, but they cannot pass along their access. A colleague they forward it to sees a sign-in prompt, not your files.
3. Edit permission is possible. If you want someone to add files to a folder or replace a document, you need a named share. Links are read-only by nature.

The decision in one sentence

Use a link when you are handing something over. Use a named share when you are working with someone.

Everything else is detail, but the detail is where people go wrong, so here it is.

When a link is the right choice

Sending a finished thing to someone outside your circle. A photographer delivering a wedding gallery, a designer sending final logo files, an accountant returning a signed set of accounts. The recipient wants to open it and download it. They do not want to create an account to do that. A link, with an expiry date, is exactly right.

Anyone where you do not know the recipient’s email. Posting a brochure on your website, putting a video in a newsletter, sharing a PDF in a group chat with twenty people. A link is the only option that scales to “I do not know who will open this”.

Embedding. If you want a video to play on your web page or an image to appear in your blog, you need a direct link. Named sharing has no equivalent.

Something you want to stop later. A link with an expiry date switches itself off. If you send a proposal with a 30-day link, you never have to remember to revoke it.

When sharing with a person is the right choice

Anything ongoing. If someone will come back to the folder next week, and the week after, give them named access. Links get lost in email threads. Shared folders sit in their account where they can find them.

Anything they need to change. Collaborating on a document, collecting files from a client, letting an assistant tidy a folder. Edit access requires a named share.

Anything sensitive where you need to know who has seen it. Contracts, HR files, medical information, anything under NDA. With a named share you can answer the question “who has access to this?” with a list rather than a shrug.

Anything where people join and leave. A project with contractors coming and going is a named-share situation, or better, a team workspace, which handles roles and departures for you. See Workspaces for small teams.

The common mistakes

Using a link for an ongoing collaboration. The link gets pasted into a chat, scrolls away, gets pasted again, and nobody is sure which one is current. Six months later it is still live and nobody remembers who has it.

Using a named share for a one-off delivery to a stranger. The client gets an email saying they need to create an account to see their own files. Some will. Many will email you back asking you to “just send it”. You will end up sending a link anyway.

Sharing a whole folder when one file was wanted. This happens with both methods. If someone needs the invoice, share the invoice, not the “Clients” folder it lives in. It takes two more seconds and avoids an awkward conversation later.

Forgetting that links last forever by default. Unless you set an expiry, a link works until you delete it. Make a habit of setting one, even if it is a year away. You can always make a new link.

Leaving download on when you meant to leave it off. If you are sharing a preview, a draft or a watermarked proof, switch downloading off. It will not stop a determined copier, but it makes the intent clear and prevents casual saving.

A practical rule set

If you want something to pin above your desk:

• Delivering a finished thing to someone outside: link, with expiry.
• Delivering something confidential to someone outside: link, with password and expiry, password sent by a different channel.
• Working on something with a colleague or client over time: share with the person, view or edit as appropriate.
• A team of three or more working on many things: a workspace, not a pile of individual shares.
• Putting a file on a web page: direct link.

Next step

Go to the Share dialog on a file you have shared before and look at what you did. If it is a link with no expiry to someone you work with every week, convert it to a named share and delete the link. If it is a named share to a client who only ever needed one file, send them a link instead and remove their access. Ten minutes of this tidies up most people’s sharing for a year.