Sending and receiving files

A file travels from one BeeBEEP to another through your chat, directly between the two computers or phones, with no server in between and encrypted like your messages. This page explains how to send one, what the person who receives it sees, when a file downloads by itself and when it waits for a yes, and what happens when the connection drops or a transfer does not finish.

Sending a file

In a private chat or in a group:

• tap the paperclip, Send a file, and choose the file; or
• on a computer, drag one or more files from your file manager onto the open chat, or onto a chat in the list to send without opening it.

Only files travel. A folder cannot be sent: put its files in an archive (a .zip, for example) and send that.

BeeBEEP reads the file once before it goes out, to give it a fingerprint that lets the receiver check it arrived whole and resume it after a break. For a large file the bubble reads Preparing... for a moment.

The file appears in your chat as a card with its name and size. Under it you read what is happening to it:

You can send the same file to someone again when the earlier offer was not answered: the new offer replaces the old one. While a transfer of that file to them is under way or paused, BeeBEEP asks you to cancel it first.

Do not move the file too soon

Where there is room on your computer, BeeBEEP keeps its own copy of what you send, so you can move or delete the original at once. Where there is not, it reads the original file as the other person downloads it, and a notice in the chat says so: do not move, rename or delete the file until the transfer is over, or the download fails.

Receiving a file

The sender's offer shows in the chat as a card. What happens next depends on who sent it.

• A contact's file downloads by itself, up to the size you chose in Settings > Preferences > Download automatically: any size on a computer, 20 MB on a phone, unless you changed it. A larger file waits for your Accept or Reject.
• A file from someone who is not your contact always waits for your answer, however small, and so does a contact's on a network you classified as public.
• A voice message always downloads, from anyone: it is not a file you have to decide about.
• A file that waits is not lost: Accept starts it whenever you want, Reject tells the sender you said no, and the sender may withdraw it.

A person is a contact when you turn on Contact in their details or when you met them on a network you called Private; the page on getting started says more. The sizes and their names are in settings.

If you do not want to receive files at all, turn off Accept file transfers in Settings > Preferences. BeeBEEP then refuses every offer, and the sender is told, in the chat, that you are not accepting files.

Where the file goes

On a computer a downloaded file goes to your system's Downloads folder, unless you chose another in Download folder. On a phone files stay in BeeBEEP's own documents area. Tap a finished file in the chat to open it with the program your system uses for that type.

If a file with the same name is already there, BeeBEEP does not replace it: the new one is named report (1).pdf, then report (2).pdf, and so on, before the extension.

A file is checked when it has arrived: BeeBEEP reads it again and compares it with the sender's fingerprint. If they differ, the file is thrown away and the transfer reads Failed. A file you already received, still in its place, is not downloaded again: the card points to the copy you have and the sender is told you already have it.

Before it starts, BeeBEEP checks that your device has room for the whole file. If not, it declines for you and the sender is told that you could not receive it.

Transfers in progress

The File transfers button at the top of Chats lists what is going on, sent and received: each with its name, who it is with, its state (Offered, Accepted, Requesting, Transferring, Paused) and its progress, and the buttons Accept and Reject for what waits for you and Pause, Resume and Cancel for the rest. No active file transfers. says there is nothing to show.

• Pause stops a transfer and keeps what has arrived; Resume goes on from there, not from the start.
• Cancel ends the transfer for good and removes what had arrived. If you want the file, it has to be sent again.
• BeeBEEP runs only a few transfers at the same time, sent and received together; the others wait their turn and start by themselves.

When the connection drops

A transfer that is interrupted, because a computer sleeps, the Wi-Fi goes away, someone closes BeeBEEP or turns the device off, is paused by itself and goes on when the two people can reach each other again, from where it stopped. You do not have to ask the sender to start over.

Files in a group

A file sent to a group is offered to every member, and each member answers for themself: one may download it at once as a contact, another may reject it, a third may be offline. For you, as the sender, each person is a transfer of its own, and File transfers lists them separately, with a Cancel for each.

A member who is offline when you send gets the offer when they come back and can accept it then, as if you had sent it just now, as long as the offer is still valid.

When a file does not go

See also

• Settings, for Accept file transfers, Download automatically and Download folder.
• Tips, to send a file by dropping it.
• Reaching other people, when you cannot see the person you want to send to.