Receive links.

A receive link lets anyone who has it send files to a folder you choose. The sender needs no account and never sees where the files go. Receive links are included on every plan, Free mode too.

How it works

1. You create a link in four short steps: the basics, who can send, limits, and a review.
2. Farwing emails it to the people you name, each with a personal link, or you copy it and share it any way you like.
3. The sender opens it and sends files or folders, at full speed with Farwing Desktop or straight from the browser.
4. Each file lands in a hidden staging area first. It moves to your folder only when the upload is complete, its checksum matches, and the virus scan passes or your scan policy allows it. Users cannot see the staging area.
5. You are told, and the sender gets a receipt.

What each plan includes

The sender's page uses your server's branding. In Free mode it shows a small Sent with Farwing badge. A license with custom branding removes the badge.

Create a link

Open the receive links page and choose to make a new link. Four steps follow, with a progress bar at the top. Back and Next keep what you have typed.

1. Basics: the name, a message to senders, and the destination folder. You pick a folder inside a space you can write to, such as My files or a shared space.
2. Who can send: anyone with the link, anyone who gives an email address, only people who confirm their email address, and an optional passcode.
3. Limits and organization: expiry, size, file count and file type limits, one-time or reusable, the folder per submission, notifications and custom form fields. All of it starts folded away with the defaults below.
4. Review: everything on one page, each part with a link back to change it.

Only the name and the destination folder are needed. Every other field has the default shown here, so most links are a name, a folder, and Next three times. Changing a link later opens the same steps.

Share the link

When you save, Farwing shows the link large, with a button to copy it and a QR code for a phone. From the same screen you can:

• Send by email: type one or more addresses, add a note if you like, and send. Each person gets a personal link. See Personal invitations.
• Open the sender's page to see exactly what senders see.

Emails to you and to senders, such as invitations, notices, receipts and codes, go out through the server's email settings, so set those up first. Until email is set up, copy the link instead. You can change the wording of every email in Customizing emails.

Personal invitations

A link sent with Send by email is personal. Opening it proves the person holds that inbox, the same way a 6-digit code would. So they are not asked for their email address or for a code: their address is filled in, cannot be changed, and every submission through it is recorded as theirs.

• Each invitation is a long random secret, stored only in a form that cannot be turned back into the link. It works for one link and one address, and nothing else.
• It lasts no longer than the link. When the link expires, is switched off or ends, the invitation stops working too.
• Inviting the same address again replaces the earlier invitation, so only the newest email works.
• You can withdraw any invitation from the link's page, and see whether each one was opened.
• A passcode on the link still applies to invited people. Tell them the passcode separately.
• Up to 50 addresses go in one send. Each address is handled on its own, so one mistyped address does not stop the rest.

Folder names

With Subfolder per submission on, each submission goes into a new folder inside the destination. Its name comes from a template. These are all the values a template can use:

• A name that is not on this list becomes empty. A typo shows up as a missing word in the folder name, never as stray braces on disk.
• Each value is cleaned before it goes in. A slash in a sender's answer becomes an underscore, so a sender cannot make folders.
• A slash in the template itself makes a folder inside a folder. {{date}}/{{sender.email}} makes one folder per day, with one folder per sender inside it.
• A template may be up to 200 characters long.

For example, with a custom field whose ID is project, the template {{form.project}}/{{date}} {{sender.name}} puts each submission under the project the sender named.

Passcodes

A passcode is a shared secret for the whole link. The sender types it on the link's page before anything is sent. The passcode is not part of the link. Tell the sender the passcode another way, for example by phone or in a separate message, so that someone who gets the link alone cannot use it.

Sender email and the 6-digit check

By default the sender must give an email address. It is saved with the submission, shown in your list, and used for the receipt.

With the email check on, which is the default, the address must be real. On a shared link, confirming it is the first step the sender sees, before anything else: they type their address, Farwing emails a 6-digit code, and they type or paste it. A code can be sent again after a short wait, and too many wrong tries pause the check for that address.

People who open a personal invitation skip this step, because opening it already proved their address.

Limits

The server also protects every link with a rate limit per IP address and per link, and received files count toward your external traffic limits.

One-time and reusable links

• One-time: the link closes after one submission. Use it to collect one delivery from one person.
• Reusable: the link stays open for many submissions until it expires, you end it, or it reaches its lifetime size limit. Use it as a standing drop for a client or a team.

You can disable a link at any time, or end it early. Anyone who opens a link that has ended sees This link is no longer active.

What the sender sees

The sender's page is a short series of steps under your name, message and branding. Steps that have nothing to ask are left out.

1. Confirm it's you, only when the link needs it: the passcode, and on a shared link with the email check, the 6-digit code. Invited people skip the code.
2. Details, only when there is something to ask: the sender's email and name, and any custom form fields.
3. Choose how to send: Send with Farwing Desktop, marked as the fastest, or Send in the browser, with a drop area for files and folders. On a phone the drop area comes first.
4. Sending: progress, speed and time left, with buttons to pause, resume and cancel.
5. Receipt: file names, sizes and checksums, and the scan result once it is known. Farwing emails the same receipt to the sender.

The browser sends each file in parts, several at a time, and checks each part. If the page reloads or the network drops, the upload carries on where it stopped. If the browser does not allow page storage, the upload still works but cannot resume after a reload. A dropped or picked folder keeps its structure.

Sending with Farwing Desktop

Farwing Desktop sends over the same fast transfer engine as transfers between servers, so large deliveries go at the full speed of the connection. When the sender chooses it:

1. The page opens Farwing Desktop. If nothing opens, the page offers the download, and a way to try again.
2. Desktop shows Send files to your name, with your logo, message and the link's limits in plain words, such as Up to 50 GB, .mov .mxf .wav, until Oct 30.
3. The sender drops in or picks files and folders. Desktop checks them against the limits before anything moves.
4. The files go with live speed, time left, pause and resume. The sender's browser page follows along.
5. Desktop and the page both show the receipt, with checksums, and the scan result once it is known.

Files sent with Desktop are treated exactly like files sent in the browser: they wait in staging, are scanned, are released by the same rules, count toward your traffic limits, raise the same event, and send the same emails. The link Desktop is opened with holds only a one-time code that works for ten minutes, so it is worthless if copied later. If the sender's Desktop is too old, the page says so and links to the update. The browser option stays available throughout.

Sending from the command line

The Farwing command line sends to a receive link at the same full speed, which suits servers and scripts:

farwing send https://files.example.com/send/LINK ./footage notes.txt

It asks for whatever the link needs, such as the email address, the code from the email, or the passcode, or takes them as --email, --name, --passcode and --field ID=VALUE. It checks the files against the link's limits first, then prints the receipt with checksums and the scan result. With a personal invitation link it asks for nothing.

What the sender never sees

• The destination folder, or any path on your server.
• Other senders' files or submissions.
• Details about a blocked file. If the virus scan blocks a file, the sender sees 1 file was not accepted and nothing more. You and an administrator see the file name and the threat name.

Custom form fields

Custom form fields need a Team license or higher. In Free mode the section is greyed out. Add a field for anything you want to know with each delivery, such as a project code or a deadline. A field can be:

• Text
• Long text
• A choice from a list
• A date
• A checkbox

Mark any field as required and the sender cannot send until it is filled in. Answers are saved with the submission and shown in your Submissions list. You can use them in folder names with {{form.<field id>}}, and event rules receive them, so a rule can route files by what the sender answered.

Name clashes and safe names

• Nothing is ever overwritten. If a file with the same name is already in the folder, Farwing adds (2) before the extension, then (3) and so on. A second report.pdf becomes report (2).pdf.
• File and folder names from senders are cleaned. Characters that Windows does not allow become underscores, and control characters are removed.
• Paths with .., absolute paths, and links that point outside the storage location are never followed.

The list

Receive links opens on your links, newest first. Filter them by All, Active, Expired or Ended. A one-time link that has already been used counts as ended. Once you have more than 25 links in the filter you are looking at, the page shows which ones you are on and buttons for the previous and next page. You can show 25, 50 or 100 at a time. With 25 or fewer, the page stays a single list.

End a link, or delete it

End stops the link taking files. It stays in the list, marked ended, and the submissions it already received stay with it. Use this when you may still want to see who sent what.

Delete asks you to confirm, then takes the link off the list. If it was still taking files, it stops. Files already saved stay in their folder. The history of what was sent through this link is removed with it, and so are its invitations. This cannot be undone. Delete is available on every link, including ones that are still active.

Your view: submissions

Each link has a list of what was sent, with the sender, the time, the form values, the files, the total size and the scan status. A scan status is Scanning…, Clean, Blocked, or Not scanned with the reason.

For each submission you can:

• Open its folder.
• Download its files.
• Send the receipt again.
• Block the sender, so that address cannot send through this link again.

Audit and automation

• Admin → Security & audit → Audit log records when a link is created, changed, ended or deleted, every invitation sent, opened or withdrawn, every hand-off to Farwing Desktop, and every submission.
• When all files of one submission are released into your folder, Farwing raises a receive_link.submitted event. Event rules can start on it, for example to copy the files elsewhere or post a message.
• The receive links API creates, lists, changes, ends and deletes links, sends and withdraws invitations, and lists submissions. Listing accepts filter, limit and offset. The API is part of every paid plan.

Related

• Files for the folder the files land in
• Virus scanning for how received files are checked
• Event rules for acting on a submission
• Server admin
• Plans and licenses

Farwing docs · farwing.io