A better alternative to email attachments
Email attachments fail in a specific way: once sent, the sender loses every form of control. The alternatives each solve part of that, and it is worth being clear about which part.
Shared drive links
These fix persistence — revoke the link and the file stops resolving. The cost is friction: recipients typically need an account, sometimes a license, and external people often cannot get access without an administrator. In practice that friction pushes people back to attachments for exactly the documents that most needed the control.
Encrypted email
Encrypted email protects the message in transit and, done properly, from the provider. What it does not give you is expiry, view limits, revocation, or a record of opens. It also usually requires the recipient to run compatible software, which rules it out for one-off exchanges with clients.
Expiring links with access controls
This is the approach Capsule takes: the file lives behind a link you can expire, cap, protect, and revoke, while the recipient just clicks and reads. It keeps the property that made attachments popular — zero effort for the recipient — and adds the control that attachments never had.
- Set an expiry date or a maximum number of opens.
- Require a password or a verified email address.
- Revoke instantly, even after the document has been read.
- See who opened it and when.
- Optionally encrypt in the browser so the service cannot read the contents.
Choosing between them
If your recipients are inside your organization, a shared drive is usually fine. If they are clients, candidates, patients, or counterparties — people who will not create an account for a single document — an expiring link is the option that gets used rather than avoided.
Common questions
- What can I use instead of email attachments?
- A link with access controls: an expiry date, an optional view limit, an optional password or email verification, and instant revocation. Unlike an attachment, it can be withdrawn after sending and records when it was opened.
- Why are email attachments considered insecure?
- Sending copies the file into multiple mail systems and their backups. The sender cannot revoke those copies, cannot tell whether the file was opened or forwarded, and cannot recover from sending it to the wrong recipient.
- Do I have to give up convenience for security?
- No — and if you do, people will avoid the tool. The workable approach keeps the recipient experience to a single click while moving the controls to the sender’s side.