When Should a File Link Expire: 7 Days, 30 Days, or a Year

Expiry is a promise about a printed object or a message you already sent. If the QR is on a tent card, the link has to outlive Saturday. If the file is a one-off transfer for a colleague this afternoon, a short date is a feature, because you do not want last quarter's draft still sitting on a public URL in June. ShareKit does not ask you to pick an expiry from a dropdown on each upload. The date is set by how the file was created, and one paid action can move a single file out by a year. This guide is that choice, in plain language, matched to what the product actually does.

Read this next to the terms, not instead of them. The dates below are the ones the upload path and the terms describe today.

The three dates, and what they are not

7 days. A guest file upload, made without an account, is saved with a 7-day expiry date. A guest short link is stored for 7 days and is refused after that date. Use this for a file you are willing to treat as temporary and that you will not print.

30 days. A file saved to an account is saved with a 30-day expiry date. This is the default for a signed-in upload, including a file you claimed into the account after a guest upload. Claiming moves that upload onto the account date. It is the right default for a document people will open during a month-long project, not for a code laminated onto a machine.

At least one year, for one file. Keep One File is a one-time purchase. It moves the stored date out by at least a year for one specific upload, its URL, and its QR code. It does not renew by itself. It does not apply to your other files. The current price is on pricing. If the file's date is already further away than a year from the payment, the purchase does not shorten it.

Signed-in short links are a different object. They are stored without an automatic expiry date. Guest short links are not. Do not confuse a short link you created while signed in with a file upload. A file page and a short link follow different clocks. This article is about the file.

The date is not an off switch

This is the sentence people miss. The public file page, the download, and the file QR are not switched off automatically when the stored date passes. Delete the upload when that page should stop. A reminder email can be sent before the stored date. Deleting stops the public page. It does not erase a copy someone already downloaded.

So "7 days" and "30 days" are storage dates and reminder dates, not a guarantee that the URL goes dark at midnight. If you need the page to stop, delete it. If you need a reminder before the date you wrote down, make sure the account can receive mail. Do not build a process that assumes the QR dies by itself.

Also do not build a process that assumes the file is safe to forget. Keep your own copy. Removal, deletion, and an outage can interrupt access. The link is distribution. The source file stays with you.

Match the date to the physical object

Ask where the address will live. The object, not the file size, picks the date.

A message today. You are sending a PDF or a ZIP that someone will download before Friday. A guest upload's 7-day date matches, if you are present to send a new link if they miss it. If you might need to replace the file, sign in. Guest files are a poor place to practice revisions. Start at file to URL while signed in when the file might change.

A project this month. A proposal, a homework packet, a pitch deck the committee will open twice. Save it to the account and plan on 30 days. Put a revision line in the file. Replace in place if the content changes, up to five times. Replacement does not move the stored date. A new PDF on day 20 does not give you another 30 days. If the decision meeting is on day 40, either Keep One File or a new upload and a new message before the meeting. Do not discover the gap in the meeting.

A printed code. Menus, shelf talkers, manual cards, exhibition labels, the QR on a proposal leave-behind. Print is expensive to recall. Use an account at minimum, and use Keep One File when the paper should still work in nine months. Five replacements cover a year of seasonal menus. They do not cover a weekly specials sheet. For a weekly sheet, plan a new print or put the weekly file somewhere you do not pretend is permanent. The restaurant version of this tradeoff is QR codes for restaurants.

A short link you edit. If you are not hosting the file on ShareKit, and you are sending people to a page you can change, a signed-in short link has no automatic expiry. Guest short links expire and are refused after 7 days. Print only the signed-in kind, and still name a person who can edit the destination.

Worked dates, so the arithmetic is boring

Today is 20 October 2026 in these examples. The point is the gap, not the calendar.

• You upload a guest PDF on 20 October. The stored date is 27 October. You did not sign in. You should not put that URL on a poster for a 2 November event.
• You sign in and upload the same PDF on 20 October. The stored date is 19 November. A committee that meets on 10 November can use it. A fair on 5 December cannot, unless you buy Keep One File or you upload again and replace every printed piece.
• You buy Keep One File on 20 October for that upload. The stored date moves to at least 20 October 2027, one year from payment. If the file somehow already expired later than that, the later date stays. The purchase is for this upload only.
• You replace the PDF on 2 November. The share address is unchanged. The stored date is unchanged. You have used one of five replacements.

Write the stored date next to the print job in your job folder. The upload screen is the source. Your memory is not.

What replacement does to the clock

Owners can replace an uploaded file at the same address up to five times. The URL and the QR stay. The stored expiry does not get a fresh window. People treat replacement as a renewal. It is not. It is a content swap.

That is useful. A menu price change should not require a new tent, and it also should not silently extend a free storage promise. If you need both a new PDF and a longer date, do both actions on purpose: replace the file, and buy Keep One File if this is the file that has to outlast 30 days. Confirm the new date on the upload after the purchase, before you print the run.

The replacement action accepts a file that passes the normal upload checks. Very large video masters are a different path: chunked uploads can be much larger than a typical PDF, and you should confirm the current limit before you promise a client you can swap a multi-gigabyte file in place. For documents and ordinary audio, the five-swap rule is the constraint you will hit first.

A decision you can make in two minutes

1. Will anyone print this address, or paste it into a page you cannot edit next week? If no, 7 days as a guest or 30 days on an account is enough. Prefer the account if you may replace the file.
2. Will a person need it more than a month from now? If yes, do not use a guest upload. Use the account, and buy Keep One File if the answer is "most of a year."
3. Must the page go dark on a specific day, for example the day after an event? The stored date will not do that for you. Put a reminder on your own calendar and delete the upload. The product can email a reminder before the stored date. Your calendar should still exist.
4. Is the file something you would regret leaving on a public URL? Do not upload it. Expiry is not access control. There is no password on the public page.

If two people share the account, name the one who is allowed to delete. A helpful colleague who deletes "old files" on a Friday will take a live QR down. The QR does not know that the delete was tidy.

Questions that usually mean the date was never chosen

I thought the link expired, but it still opens.

That matches the product. The stored date is not an automatic unpublish. Delete the upload if it should stop.

I replaced the file. Why is the date the same?

Because replacement does not extend expiry. Look at Keep One File if you needed a longer date, or accept the account's 30 days and plan the next upload.

Do recipients need an account before the date?

No. Anyone with the public URL can open the page without signing in, for as long as you leave the upload up.

What about the QR scans after the date I remember?

Scans still follow the code to the page while the upload exists. The scan count, the view count, and the download count are separate aggregates. They do not turn themselves off on the stored date, and they do not identify a person.

Is a year the longest option?

Keep One File is the control that moves one file out by at least a year. It is not a promise that every paid plan changes every file's date. Check the pricing page for what a plan includes today, and check the upload's own date after you pay. The number on the upload is the one to trust.

Related: file to URL · pricing · PDF to URL