At Photofocus, our general policy is to only review products we like. There are so many great products out there to help photographers. In this case though, I am making an exception based on recent experiences with a company.
Many of us need to send large images or video files between clients and team members as part of our jobs. Previously, I used Hightail for this.
Hightail (aka YouSendIt)
I have been a customer of YouSendIt (now Hightail) for at least five years. I have also highly recommended it for years as an easy way to share files and send things to clients. Sure, Dropbox works well, but Hightail and YouSendIt were easier to manage and I didn’t need to go in and clean out files. I could set them to auto expire as well as get return receipts once a file was downloaded.
Recently, the service has taken a dramatic turn for the worse. I have seen delivery speed crawl to ridiculously slow rates. Last week, the company slipped to download speeds that rival the best of the Internet at least if it was 1992.
The Problem
I am a heavy Internet user. Last Friday afternoon, one of our team members sent me a file I needed for a client. The file was large (700 MB) but not huge. The download speeds at my house are 78 Mbps on average.
Hightail download speeds were .73 Mbps. Yes thats a decimal point in front of the 73. I was able to download files at less than 1% of my available bandwidth. That was 10+ hours to download a 700 mb file.
Sure, every server can have a hiccup. But now, nearly one week later, the service is still only delivering downloads at 3.6 Mbps. But my real beef? One would expect for a service that you pay more than $300 a year for that they would provide some real support. It was my experiences in trying to resolve my problems with the company and their lack of professionalism that were the impetus for this review.
Actions Speak Louder Than Words
Let me give you 6 reasons why professionals can’t depend on Hightail to deliver their digital files. I excerpted several direct quotes from the company and my support sessions. I used this method to contact them so I’d have a written record of their responses. Ive edited it down but included the most relevant parts.
#1 Transfer Speeds
Your clients and your team expect things to download reasonably fast. Getting download speeds that are 1-5% of your bandwidth is ridiculous. Clients were asking us if something was wrong with the website.
#2 Hiding Problems
If an online services company has problems (or suspected problems) I’ll check their status page. This is a quick way to determine if the problem is on my end or theirs. Or perhaps it was a scheduled service update that I was warned about.
At Hightail, the companys status page hasn’t been updated for over four months. If you look in their support forums, there are numerous complaints about the service. The company insists though that every thing has been perfect for months. The support agents I talked to denied any problems, but Im pretty good with the whole Internet thing and was able to show them they did indeed have a problem.
- Support: As of the moment our status page is not yet updated but you can see the update on this link http://learn.hightail.com/t5/Site-Status/bg-p/SiteStatus
- Me: I have been having download issues for 8 hours. How long does it typically take you to update a status page. Is that also 24-48 hours?
- Support: Usually the site updates once there’s a known issue
- Me: For the record. the last time that page was updated on Sep 7, 2013 12:49 AM. There are NUMEROUS reports in your forums of people posting about issues.
That status page http://learn.hightail.com/t5/Site-Status/bg-p/SiteStatus still denies there were ever any problems. This is despite my tech support contact informing me that hed escalate that issue too.
#3 The company seems to be trying to cut costs
The economy is tough. I get it. But you can only trim things so far until there’s a big problem. After I contacted support (and the company denied any problems) it took a while to get any real answers. They finally admitted that there were server problems. Sounds to me like they don’t have enough servers.
- Support: I really do apologize Richard but it is reported that we have an issue with our two servers
- Me: *two… Seems like you guys have been having “ISSUES” a lot’
Here’s a screen shot to show you. Richard was the name of the support representative for this part of my support “experience.”
#4 They don’t understand business needs.
I informed Hightail that I was going to miss delivering my files on time to my customer. That I was not going to make my deliverable time due to the ridiculously long download time. While the file said 10 hours the estimate kept going up.
- Me: I am about to blow a contract. Its 2 am here How long am I going to be staying up and waiting. I have an 8 am delivery (deadline).
- Support: we really do apologize for this inconvenience that may have caused you
- Me: So give me specifics. Do I need to call my client at 2 am and tell them that we’re about to miss their deadline? When are your servers expected to be fixed
- Support: Please do give them a head’s up that we’re having an issues with our servers
- Me: I am about to lose a few thousand dollars because of your servers
#5 They don’t solve problems very well.
I always try to find a solution to a problem. In this case it sounded like the outbound connections to servers were malfunctioning. But perhaps they could access my data and move it to a different location over their local network. I asked if my files could be accessed from another server. Support said yes, but that only a Level 2 tech could solve this problem.
I spoke to two support people on this issue to verify the situation.
- Me: Okay. Move my files to a server that works
- Support: the only people that can do that is on our Tier 2 support
- Me: AND?!?
- Support: I will escalate your case to then and they will reply to you via e-mail
- Me: I pay hundreds of dollars for this and have multiple accounts in my company. I don’t want email support. Connect me with a real person either via chat or phone now. I am about to lose a client because of your cra**y servers.
- Support: Sorry Richard, but there’s no available phone support as of the moment and for me to connect you to our Tier 2 support, I’ll need to escalate this issue. (Ill) write down the issues and they can respond to it
- Me: Is your tier 2 support currently working
- Support: They are here Monday to Saturday 6:00AM to 6:00PM PST.
So, your companys ENTIRE business model is about delivering files. But your Level 2 Tech Support (the ones who can do more than offering soothing statements) only works 42.8% of the time. If it were my company, I think Id keep people around who can actually solve problems.
#6 They break promises.
I was promised that someone from support would be in touch the next morning. That request to speak to a manager that was also promised… still hasn’t happened more than a week later.
- Support: I understand your frustration. But there’s no available tech on chat and phone. I need to escalate your issues using my tools here so they can respond to your concern.
- Me: And how long is it going to take to get a response
- Support: ETA would be 24-48 hours, but as soon as they get my escalation, they will respond to it.
- Me: I want a phone call from a manager on Monday
- Support: yes, I will let them call you please provide me your phone number
- Me: 703-6XX-4XXX
When did I get a call? Six days later. But from that support tech who was supposed to call the next AM. This was only after I publicly complained to the company twice on Twitter. Of course then they said they didn’t have my number. Despite it being a part of the original report and appearing on my customer profile.
That request to talk to a manager… more than a week later and still hasn’t happened.
The bottom line
Its really sad when a website which specializes in digital delivery can’t keep up with its promises. Especially when things like traditional courier and even overnight shipping offer faster delivery speeds.Additionally, I would expect that a request to have a manager call me to discuss my service would have resulted in at least some attempt at communication.
The resolution to the story? I had to call the team member at home at 3 am and wake them up. They then had to login to a different service and resend me the file. I pulled an all-nighter and made my deadline.
At this point, I can no longer recommend Hightail (aka YouSendIt). What once was a great service has become completely unreliable. I expect that if I pay a few hundred dollars a year for a service, its customer support can actually help me. It also seems off that it took a company six days to reach out at all and all of my attempts to discuss their poor performance have resulted in zero response.
I’m looking for a good digital delivery company that’s not Dropbox (we already use them). Something that just emails clients a link to click and download (and then gives a return receipt). Please post any suggestions in the comments below.
___________________________
We Transfer has been solid for me!
https://www.wetransfer.com/
Works for me too.
HighTail = HighAnxiety. Have used YouSendIt now HighTail for many years but now trying WeTransfer or perhaps creating our own FTP service. We need to send large media files daily and HighTail has failed us so many times in the last few months we will opt out of our agreement. Cannot recommend them.
FWIW, I dropped them last summer for similar reasons. Though it is more cumbersome, I created a password protected XFR folder on my corporate websites. I now use FTP to upload a large file, then send an email, asking them to let me know when they have downloaded the file. I then FTP back on to delete the file. At least this always works. As it happens, I have 3 different web sites, each on a different ISP, so if one is giving me headaches, I just upload to a different one. I LOVE redundancy… :) (I use Drobo for… Read more »
I use mailbigfile this end..
wetransfer.com has always been good to me with upload/download speeds and they offer some big file sizes (10GB) with a paid account and 2gb when you use the free service
Unfortunately I subscribed to wetransfer plus and am experiencing a trickling crippling upload speed. Just 1 GB is taking over 3 hours. My speediest confirms I have a 128 mbps download measure and a 12mbps upload… which should still be much better than what wetransfer is giving me. I have a 6 GB file that will get to my client faster by fedex at this point. About to cancel that membership to wetransfer plus!
Try Box.com (not to be confused with Dropbox). I think you’ll find them a breath of fresh air on the support front and their service is business-oriented.
For years I have used my own FTP site (part of my website hosting pkg) to deliver files without any restrictions. However, with some customers having occasional problems logging into the site I have starting transitioning over to WeTransfer.com and have not had any problems. I also like the benefit of receiving an email that let’s me know when the file has been downloaded.
I use wetransfer all the time, usually for video files of 1gb plus. never had a problem.
We use hightail on a daily basis for sending/receiving files up to 2gb in size and haven’t had a problem. It sounds to me that the problem could have been on your end of a fluke.
Hi Joel
Glad you actually read or even looked at the article. I show screenshots where Hightail admits they have a problem and their own testing utility shows a delivery problem. Of course after writing 40 technical books for the photo and video industry, it’s probably just user error on my end. Not.
Being with a company that has been using Hightail for over three years now I can tell you that their service is so slow you could fly to the destination and back before the file becomes synced.
Yes we have unlimited storage for 75 employees but its hardly worth it do to the sync speed..
I’ve been using ‘yousendit’ / Hightail, for the past 6 months, and am not happy at all. Occasionaly it works well, but most of the time it’s painfully slow. I’m going to try ‘wetransfer.com’ now.
I use Hightail weekly, and ever since their name change, they have been the worst! What used to download in and hour or two, now takes 5-10 hours. I have been a long time user, and and now making the switch away from them. This story is 100% accurate with my experience. Go visit their support forums and decide for yourself. I would’t recommend HT to my worst enemy.
Agreed. Yousendit was good. It’s a really stupid name too. And worst of all as someone who is not the most computer savvy, I just can’t work out how to download a file when its sent to me. It’s so unintuitive. To date I have been unable to watch, listen or look at a single item sent to me on their crappy service.
Wetransfer all the way.
Exactly my own experiences VJ.
‘Yousendit’ worked perfertly for me, but trying to drive (and now even get to do what I’ve paid them for!) the ‘Hightail Experience’ is a nightmare. Saly it is fairly useless for reliable file sending these days.
I can recommend ShareFile for this (disclosure: I’m a Citrix employee). Not only an enterprise-grade service, but also a support team that’s constantly being graded as one of the best in the industry.
I also recommend ShareFile (and I am not in anyway affiliated with Citrix). I’ve been using it since I first heard about it on TWiT over a year ago and haven’t looked at any other services since. I routinely send 1GB +\- files without problems.
I too have been with them for a while. No real issues but I complained about the name change. Confusing to me and to clients to have two names! Thanks for posting this I will look in to Sharefile and Wetransfer.
Can I recommend our app DIgital Pigeon? We go to great lengths to ensure the best transfer speeds with global upload servers. There is also the option to show instant media previews on your branded download page. For photographers it’s often a contact sheet. We focus service on businesses to ensure better support.
http://www.digitalpigeon.com
http://www.wetransfer.com – I use a lot and is OK.
I am curious, with such a tight deadline why you did not change up how your client delivered the file to you? One way of dealing with being stuck in traffic is to go a different route. I do appreciate the article. I have been a yousendit/hightail user for many years and in general prefer it to BOX, but I have noticed similar download issues. I thought Verizon was slowing my download speeds, but after testing my upload and download speeds I realized it was hightails issues. Thanks for the article and sharing the experience.
The file was sent to me with 18 hours to spare. A dial up modem would have made it faster than hightail. A 700 mb file is not a big deal in today’s world.
I was using Yousendit just just for a way to backup my archive and store files. Also I liked being able to sign documents. I stopped using it due to lack of speed. I must say the new branding looks great and I like the option to have your own custom branded page but if it’s still going to be super slow and id I can’t look at images without downloading, then that defeats the purpose. Leaning towards Box. Mosaic seems nice but I don’t use Lightroom. Wetransfer is fine for sending but I want unlimited and affordable storage for… Read more »
HI Richard! Could I recommend you take a look at http://www.getalink.com? We were recently featured on the home page of Master New Media, and I think we fill the void nicely. Up to 4GB upload for free, no account or e-mail needed, fastest upload speed available, Amazon S3 based, and a strong independent artist outreach. Check it out and let me know what you think.
I use Hightail too and it has gotten dodgy since the cutover from YouSendIt. I was using Box.net a while back but had some sync issues so I avoided it. But they recently had a major overhaul and basically did what Western Digital did, rebuild into a robust entity. They offer a YouSendIt/DropBox scenario that is quite good now IMO. In fact, I saw they have a promotion again similar to what that they ran 3 years ago, to garner interest: if you sign up with their iPhone app, your starting space is 50GB, all for free, no strings attached… Read more »
Haha, ouch Richard, you crushed them. And ranked so high in a search… prolly be contacting you for free VIP membership or something. Beautiful blog design btw, love the font and clean layout.
You nailed it! Hightail has been very problematic for us, including billing us AFTER we closed our account. Twice. Not dependable.
Check out Filemail.com – I can send 30GB for free without registering there. Speeds could be faster I guess, but I still like it a lot more than wetransfer/hightail.
Richard….I couldn’t agree more. YouSendIt was fine and wonderful. How could this High Tail have destroyed it so completely ? !!!
I’ve been looking at the other recommended programs here and sampling them. One feature of YouSendIt that I liked and which doesn’t seem to be around is the ability to send folders with multiple files inside. Any recommendations in that direction? Tx David
Another vote for wetransfer.com. I work in post-production (TV/film) and regularly use them for sending large files. The download confirmation email is a nice bonus too!
I would not recommend Hightail as well. Why they have to fix something that is not broken? It became entirely a different thing.
I would recommend wetransfer.com and brick ftp. Brick we use as our main server but the latter has been having problems so I switch to Brick and it runs smoothly for months now. No problem or issues. Like it lots as can use it both running an ftp program or the browser. Well, I still like to use ftp program
I started using yousendit, this seemed to work for my needs as a designer, sending my illustrations and spec sheets, today, I had a catastrophic problem that lead to my late submission and subsequently lost a major account worth well over 250K in revenue for my company, I begged my client to allow me to fed ex my illustrations to their office in los angeles, and of course this request was denied as I would be not compliant with the deadline to submit…i learned a very important lesson..now im going to register with drop box, but gone are the days… Read more »
Have you tried Syncplicity? Works great for me. I got a enterprise edition for my employees and they like it. We were using box in the past, but used to have trouble syncing and accessing from mobile devices.
I agree completely re the changer from Yousendit to Hightail being a disaster – slow download, unhelpful helpline, badly-organized website (from some pages I have found I have had to log out and log in again to get where I want to go because there is no appropriate link option), and it scares away those who I send files to (some get angry – no simple click on the file name and it will download, but a series of options that confuses people – such as “save” which does not save to their computer but tells them they are not… Read more »
I’m wondering it Yousendit was acquired and profits being plumped up to re-sell to someone else. It wouldn’t be the first time a good company was destroyed for short term profits.
Yup, they are for sale:
http://www.cnbc.com/id/101911032
The product is indeed sinking. From friends in the valley, top management there is clueless and arrogant. With AOL and Yahoo in the background, they are taking the company to AOL dialup speed levels. Anyone with any engineering background, leaves the company. WHen the Hamlets depart all that remains on stage are the clowns.
same problems here – upload speeds between 5 – 10 Mbps. realy unreliable!!!
Yeah I’ve had it with them too and their lousy support for a paid for muddled up branded service. I sometimes get 17Mbps upload but generally its now down to 2mbps having been mostly 3.5mbps for ages. Its not reliable and its not fast. Every time I moan I check the connection and every time its over 15Mbops. What is the point of paying for that if they throttle you most of the time? Next…!
I’m another unhappy long-time YouSendIt user. The company has apparently spent so much time on the re-brand they forgot that service is key to customers – not a new name or color scheme. I loved YouSendIt – rarely had a problem. When I did, I had a good experience with their help desk. I had 2 customers in 2 years who contacted me saying they couldn’t download their files. I wish I could say the same now. Since the changeover, it has been one thing after another – files that don’t upload or download; files that appear to download but… Read more »
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I signed up today to try Hightail. I am a professional video editor and need to send and receive large files with consistently good performance. Unfortunately using Hightail (whether browser based or via app), download performance is about six times slower than it should be. I have Comcast Extreme 105, and get 120 megabit/sec 24×7. Unfortunately Hightail is only providing me about 20 megabit/sec, so that is not usable for my purposes. I cancelled the service the same day.
Hmm 10+ hours. Really? 700mb/.73mbps = 958.90411 seconds or 15.98 minutes. I understand exaggerating a little esp cause 16 minutes is significantly longer than the ~10seconds it normally takes but calling the wait 10 hours instead of 16minutes is extremely misleading and frankly not fair to Hightail.
You do understand the difference between 700MB (Megabytes) vs .73Mbps (Megabits) don’t you? If not, look it up and be a bit more educated next time you comment on the internet.
Yes Jonny…. And I also understand when a 50 MB file takes 8 hours to download that its not performing to spec. How are things at Hightail these days?
Bob still has the point. Even if you multiply 16 minutes by 8 (the ratio between bits and bytes), you get 2 hours and 8 minutes, so NOT 10 hours still… So either your download rate estimate is wrong or the time given is just out of nowhere.
I was a loyal customer for years (since Yousendit).
They cocked up the billing and downgraded my account despite being assured via live chat that my account would be fine.
Now they are not even replying to my supoort emails PLUS one phone number they give is dead and the other takes me through to a carpet cleaner!!
I smell a rat.
BOYCOTT HIGHTAIL they are good for nothing.
wetransfer here I come!
Got forced to use hightail to download software I bought. Can’t believe how bad the service is – about to write my supplier to tell them their choice is really dismal.
Similar experience to some of the above: I gave them my credit card number years ago and have been spending months with the fraud department of a closed credit card to stop them from charging me for my old service.
I am wondering why NOT MUCH is given time/info here to either of these 2 (except for a few commenters in the thread)>>
1) Filemail.com
2) WeTransfer
..
BOTH have filesize /cost scenarios that are solid (even great /free for huge size in case of Filemail,
to be honest),
and WeTransfer uses file encryption—
I’m VERY interested to
know if FILEMAIL is similarly safe/encrypted from anyone’s experience ??
I am trying to receive small video [50-70 MB] files that the producer was sending me for some work that I am trying to do and the throttling at Hightail is ludicrous. It seems to only operate in burst mode; sufficient for a MP3 [<= 10 MB] but little else. I've spent this weekend thus far attempting to get all of the videos that I need to have in order to continue my job. I am at my wits end trying to download those files. The last two [of about 18] will not download. The first half of the file… Read more »
I just joined Hightail last night about 8pm, and am already sorry I did. I had to send a 63Mb image file to a publisher, it took 45 minutes, and then they sent me an email saying it was sent. This morning the publisher phoned me asking me why I didn’t send the file. I checked the file, and found the email address was changed by Hightail. I then re-sent the file and the same thing happened. The email address I sent it to, had a capital letter in it,( which is quite common these days) so it seems the… Read more »
This company is acting very dodgy now. I cancelled my “special yearly offer” account in May 2014. This was confirmed by a mail from Hightail. Now, just before my subscription runs out, I get a mail from them saying “your Hightail Mini Plus subscription will be automatically renewed on August 7”. I have never made a subscription like that and I cannot find any hint about that in my account settings. I don’t even know if such a subscription exists at all. I contacted the custom service with their silly email form – no reply. Also, under “billing information” I… Read more »
Which service did you use in the end?
I’ve switched to mostly using Connected Data’s transporter.
I cant recommend HIGHTAIL either. I signed up for a free trial because I needed to send a large file quickly. I missed the piece about monthly fees and they have been taking money off my credit card for the last 2-3months without any further reference to me at all. No email to say trial was coming to an end, no email to say first payment was due to be taken, or 2nd or 3rd payment. When I have complained about this, they hide behind their T&C’s and will not budge. My point is – be really aware of this… Read more »
Yes Andrew, they did the same to me – I do not remember giving them permission to take money out of my bank account whenever they feel like it. It is also a very NON User-friendly program.
I am using MyAirBridge (www.myairbridge.com). For free you can send up to 20 GB, with profile even up to 100 GB.
Go for one of these awesome free services: http://www.attachedin.com | http://www.wetransfer.com | http://www.transferbigfiles.com and for cloud go for http://www.onedrive.com | http://www.icloud.com | http://www.box.com and many others. Don’t pay and don’t trust services more than 10 GB simply because it doesn’t make sense to transfer over 10 GB online in one go, in my opinion!
I’ve been having the same problems and wrote to Hightail referencing this post. They claimed that “our Director of Customer Success has reached out to him (i.e. you.) And the issue was his upload speed. They ran a speed test and he had a slow upload speed causing issues while sending.”
After trying unsuccessfully all day and night to upload a 3.68 GB video file on Hightail, I finally purchased a Pro subscription to WeTransfer and immediately uploaded my file with no problem, over my wireless connection.
That would be a lie… I talked with them numerous times… the speed in my office has nothing to do with slow upload speed. It was downloading a file already on their system.
That’s what I figured. It’s kind of desperate the way they keep trying to throw the problem back on the customer. I have to wonder how much longer this company will be around.
Thanks for the post. It was very helpful.
Its been rocking at a solid 17mbps upload for me since June and my many complaints. >original similar post done 6 hours ago but still not posted here – hope this site is fair?< Hightail may have got their act together?
Devans… I highly doubt you’re getting those speeds consistently as no one else seems to.. but that’s great if you are a real person and not on the company payroll. Please provide a link to your personal site and screen capture
No, my problem was yesterday. They kept trying to blame my upload speed, which was over 25mbps on a Verizon FIOS internet connection (and which worked fine on WeTransfer.) If I tried to upload directly into a folder, I got a message which said, “Sorry, files larger than 2GB are currently not supported” even though I have an account which should accommodate 10GB files. If I tried to use Hightail Express, it would not upload a file over 2 GB unless I zipped it, which I did not want to do. If I tried to send the file through the… Read more »
Richard Harrington – please refer to my earlier post castigating ‘useless’ Hightail and do not be so surprised if someone then updates this with their current, better, situation. And I didn’t change jobs so please don’t doubt me when I say my video production company’s videos now upload to Hightail at 17Mbps and have done so solidly for months. At last!
ScreenGrab :-) http://i165.photobucket.com/albums/u49/sony_sofa/HIGHTAILUPLOAD_zps9143754d.png
Fair’s fair…
D Evans
That’s not megabytes per second. But I am glad that it is performing better for you. While I’ve seen more stability lately, it still remains my backup (or third) option and not primary delivery as its too inconsistent.
Its mega BITs rather than bytes is it? 8 times smaller? Anyway I hope you get the consistency as when it works its great – this is the max possible with my internet connection so its using it all and I get about 5Gb per hour upload which delights me!
I am getting nowhere close to that despite having 23 Mbps upload on my pipe
We have been using Filecamp.com for a couple of years. It does more than just transfer files from A to B … it’s actually a complete image library as well. The system speeds are always consistently good and it’s evolving with new features. Any issues and questions have been answered quickly and to the point. I would recommend Filecamp to anyone who is looking for this type of solution.
I wish I read all this yesterday. I upgraded to a Professional account last night. I was unable to get the desktop app to install correctly. I worked on it for hours – tried to uninstall / reinstall. Many of the help pages I tried to access read “Oops. The page you were looking for doesn’t exist”. I tried to contact customer support by submitting a ticket. I submitted 2 actually. Still haven’t heard anything back. Tried this morning to initiate a chat about getting my money back and canceling the account but got a response that said someone would… Read more »
Multiple failed uploads yesterday and today, and frankly I’m very disappointed. If Hightail need to fix one single thing right now it’s to NOT wait until the END of a ludicrously long upload before giving me the ‘whoopsie, something’s gone wrong’ message. Even more worrying, I sent a client a file a few months back that appeared to arrive OK but turned out to be corrupted. Video was fine and the audio went to white noise half way through (the file was definitely OK at my end..!). I used to be a big fan of YouSendIt, but frankly things went… Read more »