PicoShare – simple file sharing

Having recently posted about rathole, today I’d like to share another tool I use in combination with rathole: PicoShare.

Sometimes I might want to briefly share a file with someone, like a PDF scan of a letter, pictures or whatever. Some people send files via email, sometimes I send them via Telegram, but sometimes I just send a link to OneDrive.

But somehow it’s all not optimal: the email with attachment fills up the space in the usually space-limited inbox or is rejected directly by the mail server due to its size, with Telegram you have to log in first and OneDrive, Google Drive and Co. try to get users to log in or create an account.

But it would be best to simply have a link that goes directly to the file, through which you can download the file straight away, or perhaps view a PDF or an image immediately in the browser.

That’s exactly what PicoShare offers. Very simple file sharing. Additionally also with the possibility to limit the access to a certain time, after which the file is deleted automatically.

A simple SQLite database is used as storage backend, where files and metadata are stored. With the option to also configure Litestream to automatically replicate the database to cloud storage.

I use PicoShare (currently without Litestream) on my home server and make my instance available on the internet via rathole. This gives me a lot of storage space to share larger files or archives (probably limited by my upload speed at home), but also allows the person I want to share a file with to access it without having to be on my home network.

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