Help
Yoink Limits and Retention: What Is and Isn't Guaranteed
Yoink makes no retention promise: there is no guaranteed file lifetime, no expiry setting, and no self-service way to delete a file once it is uploaded. Keep your original copy of anything you upload.
Updated
Retention: no guaranteed lifetime
Files are not described as permanent, and there is no setting that makes them expire after a fixed period either. The honest summary is that retention is not guaranteed in any direction. Do not rely on a Yoink link as your only copy of a file, and do not rely on a link disappearing on a schedule.
Size limit and upload behavior
The API checks your declared file size against a 5 GiB threshold (5 x 1024^3 bytes). That is a declared-size check, not a verified end-to-end operational maximum. Large files go up in a single PUT request after you get a presigned URL, and there is no resumable-upload API. If a big upload fails partway, you start the upload again rather than resuming it.
The presigned upload URL itself is valid for 900 seconds (15 minutes). That is separate from the file's public URL, which is not tied to that 15-minute window. Presign the upload, PUT the file, and only copy the public URL after the upload completes.
Accounts do not make files private
Uploading works without signup. Optional Google sign-in attributes new uploads to your user ID, but links remain public either way. There are no passwords and no recipient permissions, and nothing in the current implementation creates signed-in private files.
History is not deletion
My Files is memory of the current page session; it resets on reload or account change. Recent Uploads keeps the latest five successful file names, URLs, sizes, and dates in this browser's localStorage, separately from My Files. Removing a My Files row or clearing recent history does not delete the stored file or revoke access to it. The file's lifetime is unspecified, and there is no public list or delete API and no self-service remote deletion.
No signup does not mean no data
Uploading without an account is not a claim of zero data collection. Signing in with Google also changes what data is sent and collected, beyond just attributing uploads to your user ID. See the privacy page for what is actually collected and retained, and the API docs for the exact upload and URL behavior described above.
When to use something else
If you need revocation, private or access-controlled documents, archival retention, or a dependency for production systems, choose a service built for those guarantees before you upload. Yoink suits non-sensitive files you are comfortable sharing through a public link, with the original kept safely on your side.