Filecloud.io is one of the most popular cloud services for sharing files. The only problem is that, at some point in the past week, the site owners have changed something so that every time you go to download a file, non-premium members get the following message:
you need to have a premium account to download this file
Bummer, right? Well, there is a workaround for this, although it requires a free Filecloud account and takes a few steps:
1) Create a free Filecloud account (if you haven’t already). Make sure you’re logged in for the next steps.
2) Copy the full URL of the file you want to download (e.g., http://filecloud.io/1a23b4cd).
3) Go to any Filecloud page and click the “Tools” button in the upper-left corner.
4) Click the “Clone files” link.
5) On the next page, paste the URL from step 2 into the “URLs” box and click “Continue”.
6) On the next page, click the file name. You should be sent to a new page which will allow you to download the file normally.
As the site says, what’s happening is that you’re copying the file you want to download to the “public” section of your own account. So you probably don’t want the files sticking around any longer than necessary. When you’re done downloading, click the Filecloud banner in the upper left of the screen to go to back to your account settings page and delete the files from your account (I just CTRL+Click the file(s) in step 6, so the new download page opens in a new tab, then close that tab when done and go back to the original tab and delete it from there, but that’s just how I roll).
I have no idea how long this workaround will last. I tried it just now, and it seems to be working, though.
UPDATE: There has been a change in how Filecloud handles file imports that you should probably know about. If you import a file into your account and immediately go to download it, you may get a “blank” page instead of the file download page, Just wait several moments and try again. I think (but do not know) that Filecloud’s servers are actually copying the file to your account, and I guess there’s some sort of queue for the file copy to take place. It can take anywhere from 30 seconds to 2-3 minutes for the file to be able to be downloaded from your account. It’s unthinkable to me that they wouldn’t use Single Instance Storage, but that appears to be the case.
PRO TIP: on Sunday nights (a big downloading night for me) I usually open a Notepad++ window and go through each post and copy the Filecloud URLs (on a single line) to the Notepad window. That way, when I go to import the files, I can do all of them at once. And once the first file is available to download, the others will certainly be ready by the time the first download is done.
It worked perfectly for the 1st time but the 2nd time it blew “no such file found” right on the face !! do i have to wait or something ?
It still works, but I think Filecloud might be having trouble on their backend. I too have had the problem you have, but it seems to only affect certain files and when it does, if you wait a minute or two the file will appear in your account.
I think they might be actually copying the file to your account, rather than using single instance storage (which seems unthinkable, but who knows?). It’s also possible that the original file hasn’t finished uploading (or processing), so you get the 404 until that’s complete.
When this happens I usually only have to wait a minute or two, like to go pee, or go get a snack, and the file will be ready to download.
Filecloud change yet again. This time this step is not necessary at all. You can download the file as a guest but the disadvantage is slow download. Do this step to get maximum speed at least for registered user.