Sharing big video files over the internet

[stevescarborough]

Hi, I have an iMac running Catalina at the moment. Most of my large files, including non-commercial mp4 videos, I keep on an external 4TB drive, which is in exFat format so I can plug it into a PC.

I have an Apple ID with about 46GB left of 50GB total but I am not quite sure how to use it. I only use it for my contacts, keychain and a few small Apple apps.

How do I share my large files including mp4s with my sister in Australia who also has a Mac, I don't know what OS. Can she watch my mp4s without downloading them? If she has to download them, how does she do that?

It has to be quite simple for her as she is elderly without many computer skills.

Can this work in reverse, so that I can access her files?

Thank you if you can help - Steve

 

[MightyGem]

I'm sure you could do it through Apple ID, but I've never used it like that.

You could try Dropbox. You upload a video to Dropbox and then email her a weblink. She can watch the video online or download if she wishes.

If she creates a Dropbox account as well, you view her files.

Other sharing solutions are available.

 

[stevescarborough]

Thanks, MightyGem. I have tried this. It is not quite what I wanted. The maximum free Dropbox size is 2Gb, which is not huge for a video file, but it is free and I suppose I can reduce the video file sizes without too much loss of quality. Also I don't want to confuse my sister with sync'd files. I just want a window where I and she can put files and later delete them, without worrying about deleting the originals on our computers or external drives.

I will leave this a few days in case anybody can propose a better solution, and if not I'll mark the issue as solved by MG's suggestion. Thanks. - Steve

 

[MightyGem]

Perhaps this might work, you and your sister could access each others Mac and you could both have a specific folder for the files that you want to share.

Allow a remote computer to access your Mac

Allow remote login on your Mac so you can use SSH to log in to your Mac from another computer.

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