Recover an expired medical file transfer
An expired link is not the same as lost data. WeTransfer holds recoverable transfers in a restorable state after the link stops working, and WeTransfer Ultimate gives both the person who sent the transfer and the person trying to download it a concrete path back to those files.
Get your expired files back
In healthcare, a dead transfer link carrying patient intake forms, imaging files, or clinical documentation can create real urgency. Before assuming the files are gone, it helps to know that WeTransfer treats link expiry and permanent file deletion as two separate events: when a recoverable transfer expires, the download link goes dark but the underlying files remain on WeTransfer's servers for an extended period. WeTransfer Ultimate subscribers can restore expired transfers from the Transfers panel, and that recovery path covers transfers originally sent from a Free or Starter account too, as long as the retention window has not closed. Someone on the receiving end who still has the original expired link may also be able to restore access from the expired download page when signed in with an eligible plan. Free and Starter accounts cannot self-restore, but an expired link on its own is not confirmation that files have been permanently removed.
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FAQs
All your questions answered.
Not necessarily. An expired link means the download URL has stopped working, but it does not automatically mean the files were immediately and permanently deleted from WeTransfer's servers. By default, transfers are marked recoverable, which keeps the underlying files in a restorable state for an extended window after expiry, depending on file size. Free and Starter accounts cannot self-restore, but upgrading to WeTransfer Ultimate while the retention window is still open may make those files recoverable again.
If you sent the transfer, go to your Transfers panel in your WeTransfer account, find the expired transfer, and look for a Recover or Restore option. This is available on WeTransfer Ultimate, Teams, and Enterprise plans, and it applies even to transfers you originally sent while on a Free or Starter account, as long as the recovery window is still open. Once restored, the download link becomes active again, so the recipient can access the files without you needing to re-upload anything.
Yes, in some cases. If the recipient still has the original expired link and opens it while signed in to a WeTransfer account on an eligible plan (Ultimate, Teams, or Enterprise), they may be able to trigger a restore directly from the expired download experience, extending the download window without any re-upload from the sender. This means recovery does not always have to start from the sender's side, which matters when coordination between a clinic and an external provider is time-sensitive.
WeTransfer supports any file type without compression or re-encoding, including DICOM-adjacent formats, PDFs, large ZIP archives, spreadsheets, Office documents, and images, all sent in their original quality. File type does not affect recoverability, but file size does influence the retention window: files under 256 MB can be in a recoverable state for up to one year after expiry, while files over 256 MB have a shorter window of around 90 days. For large medical datasets, acting quickly after a link expires gives you the best chance of recovery.
WeTransfer Ultimate lets you set a custom expiry or keep a transfer active indefinitely, so clinical handoffs or referral document packages are not silently cut off after a few days. Transfers are recoverable by default unless the sender turns that setting off, and Ultimate subscribers can also retroactively recover transfers that expired before they upgraded, within the retention window. For teams, the Teams plan adds shared storage, centralized billing, and workspace-level controls, making it easier for an organization to manage transfers across multiple staff members consistently.