Your Files, Your Business: OneShare's Privacy Stance

The short version

OneShare will never use uploaded files for AI training, advertising, analytics, or any commercial purpose beyond delivering them to the intended recipient. Files are stored for 14 days and then permanently deleted.

If that's all you needed to know, you can stop here.

If you want to understand why we think this matters, and what our data practices actually look like under the surface, read on.

Why we think file privacy deserves explicit treatment

Most file transfer services have privacy policies. Some are better than others. But policies can change — and in the SaaS industry, they do change, usually without much fanfare, and usually in directions that benefit the platform rather than the user.

The recent changes to WeTransfer's Terms of Service are a well-documented example. The changes raised questions that the service's users — many of them freelancers sending client work — hadn't had to ask before: is my client's unreleased campaign safe here? Is the confidential brand identity project I'm sending protected? What does “we may use your content” actually mean?

We're not writing this to criticize WeTransfer. We're writing it because the same questions will eventually get asked about any platform, including ours. We want our answer on record, in plain language, before anyone has to ask.

What we do with your files

Here's the complete list of what OneShare does with uploaded files:

1. We store them on encrypted servers for the duration of the file availability period (14 days by default).
2. We generate a delivery link that your recipient uses to download the files.
3. We log access events (link opened, files viewed, files downloaded) for your tracking dashboard.
4. After 14 days, or when you manually delete the transfer, we permanently delete the files from our servers.

That's it. That is the complete list.

What we don't do with your files

• We don't analyze file contents.
• We don't use file metadata (filenames, formats, sizes) for anything beyond running the service.
• We don't use uploaded content to train machine learning models.
• We don't sell or share file data with advertisers or third parties.
• We don't build profiles of your clients based on their download behavior.
• We don't retain files after the deletion period, for any reason.

The business model alignment argument

This is the most important point, and the one we think gets overlooked: our privacy commitments are structurally supported by how we make money.

OneShare makes money when you buy volume packs. That's it. We don't have an advertising business that benefits from knowing what's in your files. We don't have a data business that benefits from retaining your uploads. We don't have an AI product that benefits from training on your content.

There's no financial incentive to do anything with your files except store them temporarily and delete them. Privacy, in our case, isn't a marketing position — it's an outcome of the business model.

What this means for your clients

If you're a designer sending brand identity assets to a client, or a videographer delivering unreleased footage, or a photographer sharing an embargoed shoot — your clients are trusting your judgment about the tools you use. When you send through OneShare, you can tell them honestly: the files are encrypted in transit and at rest, they're deleted after 14 days, and no one at OneShare can access or use the content.

We'll put it in writing

This isn't just a blog post. The commitments above are reflected in our Privacy Policy, and we intend to maintain them as a core part of how we operate. If we ever need to change them — for any reason — we'll announce it clearly and in advance. We won't bury it in a terms update.

Your files are your business. We'd like to keep it that way.