Public Share Links

Sometimes a file needs to leave the building. A signed contract goes back to a client, a deliverable goes to a customer, a tax document goes to the accountant. Email attachments work for small files, but anything heavier than a few MB is awkward — and the recipient might not even be a TrekMail user.

Public share links solve this. Generate a link to any file in Drive, send it however you want (email, Slack, SMS), and the recipient downloads the file from a clean TrekMail page. No login required. No third-party redirect.

Creating a share link

In any Drive view, click the three-dot menu on a file row and pick Share. A dialog opens with the link options:

• Expiry date — optional. Pick a date and time when the link will stop working. Leave blank for "no expiry," meaning the link works until you revoke it manually.
• Download limit — optional. Cap the number of successful downloads at any number from 1 to 100,000. Leave blank for unlimited.
• Note — optional, internal-only. A label visible only to you in the share-links list, useful for remembering which client a link was for.

Click Create link and TrekMail returns a URL of the form https://trekmail.net/d/{token} — a short, opaque token unique to this link. Copy it, send it.

What recipients see

When someone opens a share link, they get a clean page showing:

• The filename
• File size
• A big "Download" button
• A small note that the file is shared from a TrekMail account

That's it. No login prompt, no marketing, no related files. The recipient clicks Download and the file streams to their browser. Most browsers will save it to the default Downloads folder.

If the link has expired or hit its download limit, the page instead shows a polite "This link is no longer available" message with no detail beyond that. We don't reveal who the original sender was or what the file was named — that information is not useful to a stranger who shouldn't have the link.

Why use share links instead of email attachments

Three reasons.

Size. Most email systems reject attachments over 25 MB. Some over 10 MB. Share links work for any file size — your 800 MB video file streams as a download, no chunking required on the recipient's end.

Tracking. Each link records its download count. You can see how many times the recipient (or recipients, if you forwarded the same link) opened the file. Email attachments are a black hole.

Revocability. If you sent the wrong file or you want to cut access at a specific date, revoke the link. The next click gets the "no longer available" page. With email attachments, the file is in the recipient's inbox forever.

One concern often raised: "Doesn't a link mean anyone who gets the URL can download?" Yes — share links are unauthenticated by design. The token is random enough that guessing it is not feasible. If you need stricter controls (account-bound access, named recipient), email attachments and password-protected ZIPs are still options.

Listing and managing your links

In the Share menu of a file, beneath the link creation form, you see all existing links for that file:

• Each link's URL (with a copy button)
• Expiry date (or "Never")
• Download count vs. limit (23 / 100, or 7 / unlimited)
• Status — Active or Revoked
• Date created
• The internal note, if you set one

You can revoke any active link from this list with the Revoke button. Revoked links can't be undone — if you need to share that file again, create a new link. Revoked links remain in the list for 90 days for your audit trail, then are pruned automatically.

Each file can have multiple active links at once. This is useful if you want to send different recipients different versions of the same file with separate expiry windows or download counts. Each link tracks independently.

Composer-created links (webmail only)

When you compose an email in webmail and attach a file, two things can happen:

• File is small (under 18 MB) — the attachment is delivered the normal way, inline with the email.
• File is 18 MB or larger — webmail uploads it to your Drive in the background and replaces the attachment with a public share link. The recipient gets a normal-looking message with a download link instead of a giant attachment that might bounce.

Composer-created links default to a download limit of 100. This is a balance — generous enough for most legitimate forwards, tight enough to blunt abuse if a recipient's inbox is compromised. The limit is configurable when you compose.

You can also explicitly attach a file from Drive via the Drive icon in the composer toolbar. Browse your folders, pick a file, and a public download link is added to the email. The file isn't duplicated — the link points at the existing copy. Same recipient experience, same default 100-download cap.

Read the full mechanics in Sending Large Attachments via Drive.

Security details

A few things worth knowing if you're handling sensitive files:

• Links don't reveal account identity. The page recipients see does not name your account or domain.
• Revoked links are dead immediately. No grace period; the next request gets a 404-equivalent.
• TrekMail does not preview files publicly. A share link is download-only — the recipient has to download the file to see its contents. There is no "in-browser preview" route that exposes the file without a download.

When a link stops working

A link can stop working for any of these reasons:

• Expired. The expiry date you set has passed.
• Download limit hit. The link has been downloaded the maximum number of times you allowed.
• Manually revoked. Someone with access to the file revoked it from the manage-links view.
• File was deleted. If the underlying file is moved to Trash and 30 days passes (or trash is emptied), the link points at nothing and starts returning the unavailable page.
• File was force-deleted. If you permanently deleted the file before the 30-day window, the link broke immediately.

If you need a working link to a file you've recently deleted, restore the file from Trash (within 30 days) — the link reactivates automatically.

What's next

• Sending Large Attachments via Drive — composer auto-routing for messages with files over 18 MB.
• Sharing Folders with Your Team — share with internal mailboxes, not external recipients.
• Drive FAQ & Troubleshooting — when a link doesn't work the way you expect.