How to share files with clients

How to share files with clients is a review problem as much as a storage problem. They want to see the work on a phone, comment in a thread you already have, and download when they are sure. They do not want a Google permission puzzle or a transfer that vanished over the weekend.

Put the deliverable in a Spike folder. Enable a link. Choose public, hidden, or password. Decide what the unpaid view can take. Attach a price only if money is still outstanding.

The client share checklist

1. One folder per job, named the way they will search their inbox.
2. The real files inside, with a short license or notes PDF if needed.
3. A preview treatment so a forward is not a full delivery.
4. A password if the set should stay named.
5. A price if you still need to get paid before sending files.

Review without giving the masters away

For stills, use blur and watermark. For video, a short clip. For audio, a tagged preview. For PDFs, sample pages. Clients can still choose selects. They cannot print the unpaid view and call the job done.

Branding the page

The page they open can carry your name and look. That is part of why a dedicated delivery link sits beside Drive or a transfer: it reads as your hand-off. Details live in the docs.

From share to sale

If the review is also the invoice, turn selling on. Nothing about the folder changes except the unpaid view stays locked until checkout. Photographers describe that as selling the gallery. The generic version is how to sell digital files online.

The client should need one URL, not a drive, a transfer, and an invoice.

For size and security without a named client, the companion is how to share large files securely.

Agencies often need two doors: an internal Drive for the team, a client link for the brand. Do not mix them. The client link should contain only what they paid for or were promised. Your working files stay off that URL.

If several people at the company need the pack, one passworded link is usually enough. If departments should not see each other's jobs, use one folder per department. Spike does not replace your contract about who may forward the URL. It gives you a door you can shut.

When the job is a gallery they also owe money on, skip the separate invoice if you can. Get paid before sending files is that flow. When the job is already paid, a free passworded share is enough.

Re-sends are where a library earns itself. The client lost the ZIP. The art director is new. The printer needs the same files in a different city. You point at the same URL. You do not rebuild a transfer at midnight. That is the extra, not a speech about other tools being worse. Keep a short note in the folder of what the pack contains so the new person does not guess.