*Editor’s Note — The Filesender service was discontinued in August 2020 and is no longer available to the university community. Box and OneDrive continue to be available to the university community.
Information Technology Services is replacing UNL Drop Box with two other services that will allow for more security when sharing large digital files and data sets electronically.
Filesender and Box@UNL will replace UNL Drop Box starting March 2. Files uploaded to UNL Drop Box system prior to March 2 will be available for download until March 16.
UNL Drop Box, which is not affiliated with the commercial product dropbox.com, was launched in 2002 to allow users to share digital files that were too large to send via email. File uploads were limited to 700 megabytes. The service has been identified as a potential risk as use has increased outside the university and the entertainment industry has filed numerous take down notices with UNL for copyrighted material stored on Drop Box.
Filesender allows file uploads up to a terrabyte in size and senders can set an expiration date. Senders and recipients receive confirmation emails when the file has been sent and downloaded. The file is encrypted during transit and MyUNL credentials are used to access the system. Guest vouchers allow non-UNL colleagues to send files in return. Filesender is best used as a temporary, one-time sharing of a file, as storage of the file will expire and no backup is run on the system.
Box has more than 4,100 users at UNL with more than 9.5 TB of file storage. Box is best used when long-term storage and repeated collaboration is desired. Individual files up to 10 gigabytes and project folders can be shared and modified via assigned collaborators in Box. All data is encrypted for security. Files and folders can be also designated as viewable or downloadable by others via a Web link. The links can be password-protected and set with an assignable expiration date. Box accounts with a 50 GB capacity are available to all students, faculty and staff.
Filesender and Box@UNL are both offered free of charge to students, faculty and staff.
For more information on Box@UNL, go to http://box.unl.edu.
