Using Your Home Directory to Provide Access to Large Files

When you need to send a colleague or student a large file that contains a PowerPoint presentation with lots of graphics, for example, it is not practical – and, in some cases, not even possible because of system limitations – to e-mail the file as an attachment. It is preferable to make the file available to your colleagues or students as a file they can download and you can do that by copying it to your U.Va. Home Directory space.

Making the File Available - Use Your Home Directory

Connect to your Home Directory in one of two ways: Use the Home Directory Application

Map a Drive/Connect to Server: Windows: Tools/Map Network Drive... in Windows Explorer   Mac: from Finder, use Command-K If you are unable to connect your Home Directory, see the Home Directory Troubleshooting tip.

Select and open the “public_html” folder in your Home Directory.

Note: if you don’t have a “public_html” folder in your Home Directory, see the "Creating a Public Accessible Folder in Home Directory" tip – this is a special folder with specific file permissions so that it can be viewed via the Web Create a new folder and name it “files” (or any other name that you wish to use, but the name should not have spaces!) Copy the file(s) you wish to make available publicly or to selected people into your “files” folder.

Accessing the File

• The URL to your public space in your Home Directory is: http://www.people.virginia.edu/~[yourID], where [yourID] is your University computing ID, such as trh5u or wb6y.
• The address you should give the person who wants to download the large file you are making available is this: http://www.people.virginia.edu/~[yourID]/files/[name_of_file].
• You can simply give the recipient the URL http://www.people.virginia.edu/~[yourID]/files/ and he/she will see a list of all of the files you have in your “files” directory. If you do this, the person who wants the file need only click on the name of the particular file he/she wants and the browser will begin to download the file to that person’s computer.
• You can leave files there or let the person know that it will only be there for a certain period of time and then remove it so it is no longer available for download.