Sometimes you just need a link where students can drop off their work. No learning management system, no Google integration, no setup wizard. Just a link.
How simple are we talking?
- Go to getfiles.app
- Type the assignment name
- Click create
- Share the link
Four steps. Under 30 seconds.
When this is the right tool
- Substitute teachers covering a class and need a quick submission method
- Guest lecturers collecting follow-up work from a workshop
- After-school programs and clubs collecting project files
- Parent-teacher communication - "Upload your child's permission slip here"
- Field trips - "Upload your field trip report and photos here"
- Any time you need to collect files quickly without setting up infrastructure
What you don't need
- A school Google Workspace account
- Admin access to any system
- Technical skills
- Money
What students don't need
- Any account on any platform
- To download any app
- To remember any password
- More than 30 seconds of their time
Limitations
- Pages expire after 10 days maximum
- Not a replacement for a full LMS if you need grading, feedback, and course management
- No built-in plagiarism checking
- No direct feedback mechanism to students
For ongoing courses with complex needs, use a proper LMS. For quick, one-off file collection, use an upload link.
Where upload links fit in the assignment-submission stack
Most schools have at least three submission channels already: the LMS, email, and physical paper handed to the teacher. An upload link isn't replacing any of those - it's filling the gap where none of them quite fit.
- When the LMS exists but students don't have accounts yet (substitute, new student, first week), the upload link is the fallback.
- When email is theoretically the channel but attachment size limits or spam filters are breaking specific submissions (mobile-photo scans of math homework can run 10-20 MB and bounce on school accounts), the upload link bypasses the problem.
- When students are submitting something that isn't on the gradebook (permission slips, field-trip forms, photo consent waivers, book reports for a parent-teacher meeting), creating an LMS assignment is overkill.
What to do with the downloaded files
After you download the ZIP, the question is always the same: where do these live long-term? Three patterns that work:
- Immediate grading: open the ZIP, grade each file, done. No long-term storage. The original upload page expires and files disappear from the service - this is correct behavior.
- Archive to Drive or OneDrive: drag the ZIP contents into a dated folder on your school's cloud storage. Takes 30 seconds and gives you a permanent record.
- Feed into your LMS if grades matter: batch-upload to the gradebook by student name, then archive. This is the slowest flow but the one that matches districts requiring formal gradebook entries.
Pick whichever matches your workflow. The upload link is the intake - downstream is up to you.