Host File Browser without installing anything
A server's directory tree inside a browser: drag-and-drop uploads, document previews and share links, with permissions set folder by folder.
Starting at €4.99/month
Introduction
File Browser installed, updated and backed up by us, on a machine in France. A file explorer in your browser: upload, organise, preview and share your documents by link. You install nothing and configure no server: the application is online a few minutes after you order, under your own name.
The plan that suits it is App Essentiel at €4.99/month incl. VAT — 2 GB of memory. At rest, File Browser is a single binary that uses a few dozen megabytes. The memory goes elsewhere: to simultaneous transfers, to image and PDF previews, and above all to the ZIP archives built on the fly when somebody downloads a whole folder. Two gigabytes is what it takes for three or four people to work at the same time without getting in each other's way.
File Browser invents no format of its own: it opens an ordinary directory tree on disk, and your documents stay files inside folders. That is what makes leaving simple — there is nothing to export, only a directory to take with you. It is also its limit: there is no desktop sync agent and no WebDAV, so no folder that mirrors itself onto your laptop.
What File Browser can do
Share links, with password and expiry
A file or a folder becomes a link you send by email. The link can be protected by a password and expire on a date you choose; the recipient has no account to create.
One root folder per user
Each account is confined to the directory you give it and sees nothing above it. Permissions are set one by one: upload, rename, delete, share, download.
Preview without downloading
Images, PDFs, video, audio and Markdown files open straight in the page. A built-in editor lets you fix a text or configuration file without pulling it down first.
Bulk download as one archive
Select several files or a whole folder: the ZIP or tar.gz archive is built at download time, with nothing extra stored on the server.
What people actually use it for
Filing site photographs
A builder uploads the day's photos straight from the browser on his phone into the folder for that job, then sends the client a link to that folder alone at the end of the week.
Collecting a client's paperwork
An accountancy practice opens one account per client, each restricted to its own directory. Clients drop off the month's invoices without seeing a single folder belonging to anyone else.
Delivering a photo shoot
A photographer puts the selection online and hands over a password-protected link that expires after a fortnight — no more free transfer service capped at a few gigabytes.
Keeping a charity's archive
Statutes, minutes, posters from previous years: the committee finds everything in one place, and the treasurer may upload without being allowed to delete.
Retiring the old FTP server
A small technical team uploads release archives from a browser, with no FTP client to install on every machine and no password travelling in the clear.
Hosted in France
In our own datacentre in Nouvelle-Aquitaine, which we operate ourselves. Your clients' documents do not pass through a transfer service whose host country you cannot name.
Frequently asked questions
Nothing. You choose the application, fill in the fields it asks for — often an email address and a name — and it goes online. Access arrives by email with the address and the credentials.
Not quite, and that is deliberate. File Browser has no desktop sync agent, no WebDAV and no dedicated mobile app: you reach it through a browser, phones included. If what you want is a folder that mirrors itself across three machines, look at Nextcloud. If what you want is a plain place to drop files and hand them out, File Browser does exactly that, and it does it fast.
You create a user, assign them a root folder, and they cannot climb above it. Permissions are ticked separately: you can perfectly well let a client upload documents without granting them the right to delete any.
No, and you should know that before using it as a team. A file deleted in File Browser is deleted, and a file re-uploaded replaces the previous one. The safety net is the hosting's automatic backup, restorable from your client area.
Yes, they are part of the service. A self-hosted application left un-updated is a security risk, not a saving.