WeTransfer says you have hit your limit. Here is which limit.

It is 11pm, the client is waiting, and the upload will not go. The message tells you a limit was reached without telling you which of the three it was, and the three have completely different answers. This is how to work out where you are in about thirty seconds, and how to get the gallery out of the door while you do.

Which limit you actually hit

WeTransfer's free tier has three ceilings, and only one of them is the famous one. As published on their pricing pages and verified in August 2026, the free plan allows 3 GB in a single transfer, 3 GB combined across a rolling 30 days, and 10 transfers in that same window. An account is required to send.

Work backwards from what you were doing:

• One big drop that refused before it started. That is the per transfer ceiling. A single card of JPEGs from a full wedding day is routinely 8 to 20 GB, so it fails immediately rather than partway.
• A small drop that refused after several successful ones. That is the 3 GB monthly total. This is the one that surprises people, because each individual send looked fine. Three 1 GB sneak peek batches in a month and the fourth will not go, whatever its size.
• Small sends, plenty of headroom, still blocked. That is the count. Ten transfers goes quickly in a busy month if you send a preview, then a correction, then the album selects, then a reprint file.

The distinction matters because the first is a file size problem you can solve by splitting, the second and third are quota problems that splitting makes worse.

When each one resets

The monthly limits are a rolling 30 day window, not a calendar month. Nothing unlocks at midnight on the first. What frees up is whatever you sent 30 days ago, on the anniversary of that send.

That is worse than a calendar reset for seasonal work. Shoot four weddings in September, send previews from all four in the same fortnight, and the window does not clear until mid October, which is exactly when the October galleries are due. The busier the month, the later the relief.

The per transfer ceiling does not reset at all. A 12 GB folder will never fit through a 3 GB door.

Getting the files out tonight

Ignore the advice to split the folder into parts. It multiplies your transfer count against the very quota that stopped you, and it hands the client a puzzle: four links, four downloads, four chances to miss one and think half the wedding is missing.

The options that actually work in the next ten minutes:

• A tool with no monthly quota. Kepla Free File Transfer sends up to 10 GB in one link, free, with no account and no card. There is no monthly cap and no transfer count, because there is no plan to upsell you to. The link lives for as long as you choose, up to three days, then the files are deleted.
• Your gallery platform, if you already pay for one. Pixieset, Pic-Time and ShootProof all have a download option. Slower to set up on the night, but the client already has the login.
• Google Drive or Dropbox, if you have space. Free Drive is 15 GB shared with Gmail, and shared folders mean the client needs an account or a permissions dance.

Whatever you use, send one link, not four.

Stopping it happening every season

The limit is not really the problem. Volume is. A photographer who sends previews from every shoot is going to run into any monthly cap, on any free tier, eventually.

Two habits remove most of it. First, send once: one link with the full set rather than a preview now and a correction later. Second, send fewer frames: the near duplicates and the blinks are what turn a 3 GB delivery into a 9 GB one, and the client never wanted them anyway. That second habit is the one that pays twice, because it also cuts the edit.

If you would rather not think about quotas at all, use a tool that does not have them.

FAQ