Fix an upload error or a link that isn't working

Without an account, one browser can keep 3 active links at a time, and each stops working 7 days after upload. Links that have expired or been deleted no longer count.

Create a free account in the same browser. Your links move across when you sign up and lose their expiry. The free plan holds 5 active links, and none of them expire unless you set a date. If you'd rather not sign up, a slot opens when one of your links expires, 7 days after you uploaded it.

Each plan has a size limit per file, checked before any of the file is sent. It's 25MB without an account, 25MB on Free, 250MB on Pro and 1GB on Studio. A ZIP has to fit twice. The archive must be under the limit, and so must the total of its files once unpacked. Pasted text has its own limit of 2 MB.

Make the file smaller, for example by exporting a PDF with lower image quality, or split it into parts. Files up to 250MB fit on the Pro plan, and Studio takes files up to 1GB. On Pro, the Studio button changes your plan in place, and the card says "Today you pay the difference for the rest of your month. Your renewal date stays the same." It says "year" on a yearly plan. For pasted text over 2 MB, save it as a file and upload that.

The check runs before any of your file is sent, and it has usually finished by the time you drop the file. The can't-run card means the check never loaded, usually because a content blocker stopped challenges.cloudflare.com, or Cloudflare reported that this browser can't run it. "We could not verify your browser" means Cloudflare refused the check's answer when the upload started.

• If a box appears, tick it. The page scrolls it into view when an upload is waiting on it.
• For the first four messages, press "Try again with this file", which runs a fresh check.
• "We could not verify your browser" clears more often after a page refresh.
• On the can't-run card, allow challenges.cloudflare.com in your content blocker and press Try again.
• Signed-in uploads skip the check entirely, and a free account is enough for that.

The file travels from your browser straight to our storage, and this message means that transfer broke off. Either the browser got no answer, the connection dropped, or no data moved for 60 seconds. NudgeHost retries once by itself on a fresh upload address before it shows you the message.

Press "Try again with this file". The retry keeps the link name you chose. If it fails twice on the same connection, try a different one, such as a phone hotspot in place of an office network or a VPN.

The free plan holds 5 active links at a time. Free accounts made before 27 October 2026 keep 10 active links. Those accounts see 10 in the messages above. Deleted links don't count. An upload that started and never finished holds a slot for 1 hour. Changes to existing links pause only when an account holds more than its limit, which happens when a paid plan ends.

Delete a link you no longer need from your dashboard, then upload again. Pro and Studio have unlimited active links.

Your browser reported the file's size as 0 bytes, so there was nothing to send.

Open the file on your computer and check that it has content. Save or export it again, then pick the new copy.

Each retry asks for a fresh upload address for the same attempt, and an attempt that has used up its addresses is closed.

Press the button once more. The next press starts a new upload of the same file. If that one stops with "Something interrupted the upload", the section on that message covers the cause.

NudgeHost unpacks the archive once and checks every entry before any of it goes live. Files your computer adds by itself (__MACOSX, .DS_Store, Thumbs.db, desktop.ini) are skipped and don't count toward any limit.

The page still showed you as signed in, but your session had ended, often in a tab left open for a long time. NudgeHost refreshes the session once by itself before it shows this card.

Sign in again, then upload the file.

Without an account, one network can start 10 uploads an hour. Every attempt counts, including ones the security check stopped, and everyone on a shared office or school network draws from the same count.

Wait an hour, or sign in. Uploads from an account have no hourly limit.

A ZIP becomes a site only when it contains a file named index.html, in any folder. A file named index.htm doesn't count. A ZIP over 100MB is never unpacked, so it stays a download on every plan.

Name your start page index.html and zip the folder again. If the archive holds more than one index.html, NudgeHost serves the one closest to the top, and on a tie it picks the one inside a dist, build or out folder. If the link already exists in your account, replace the file from your dashboard and the address stays the same.

A single HTML file runs inside a sandboxed frame. Scripts, forms and new windows work there, and so do scripts and styles loaded from other sites. Four things are blocked:

• saving anything in the browser, such as cookies or localStorage
• alert(), confirm(), prompt() and print()
• links that try to replace the whole window
• images, scripts and pages referenced by a relative path, because a single upload has no folder around it

To fix all four, zip the files and upload the archive with the page named index.html. A ZIP runs as a site at its own nudgehost.site address, with no frame around it, so storage, pop-up messages and relative paths all work.

NudgeHost opens some file types in the browser and offers the rest as a download:

Any type missing from both columns downloads. So does a .docx over 100MB, or one too large to turn into a page.

A video or audio file in a supported type can still fail in one visitor's browser. That visitor sees "Your browser can't play this video inline. Download it and it will open in your usual player." NudgeHost doesn't convert media.

Export the file to a type in the first column. Slides and spreadsheets travel well as PDFs. For plain text, use the Paste text tab in place of uploading a .txt file, and the text shows on the page.

The table view shows the first 500 rows of a CSV. CSV and JSON files over 10MB skip the viewer and download. Markdown is formatted up to 2 MB, and a file that takes more than 4 seconds to format shows as source. In a formatted Markdown file, images never load, and links work only on files uploaded from an account.

Nothing is lost. The Download button at the top of every link saves the full original file.

Uploads made without an account expire 7 days after upload, and an expired link answers as if it never existed. Links on an account don't expire unless the owner sets a date, and visitors to one of those see "This link has expired".

An expired link can't be restored, so upload the file again from an account. To keep links made in the last 7 days, create a free account in the same browser before they expire, and they move across with no end date.

Pro and Studio let you use your own domain, with 1 domain on Pro and 5 on Studio. It works only for a link that is a ZIP site, and only on a subdomain such as files.example.com. A root domain like example.com is refused. A password-protected site never serves on a custom domain, because passwords work on the nudgehost.site address only.

Passwords and custom domains come with the paid plans. Each plan also has its own number of custom domains and API keys, and a Pro account that reaches either one is offered Studio.

The Studio button moves a Pro subscription to Studio straight away, on the billing period you already pay for. You pay the difference for the rest of that period, and the renewal date stays the same. To stay on your plan, remove a domain or revoke a key you no longer use.

A password-protected link limits how many tries one IP address can make in 15 minutes.

Wait 15 minutes, then try the exact password again. If you add a password to your shared link, changing that password later shuts out everyone who opened the link with the old one. A correct password keeps a visitor in for 12 hours on a file link and 24 hours on a site.