Put a local HTML file online and share it

Ways to put a local HTML file online and get a link

Why a local file path does not work when you send it

When you double-click an HTML file on your computer, your browser opens an address that starts with file:/// followed by the path to your hard drive. A local file path only opens on that computer, so pasting that address into a text message or email gives the other person a broken page.

Sending the raw .html file as an attachment often fails too, because mobile messaging apps preview it as plain code or block scripts from running. When you upload an HTML file to a static host, you get an https:// link that opens in any phone or desktop browser.

Which tool should you use to share your HTML file

If you made a Valentine HTML page for your girlfriend, a school assignment, or a quick mockup and want a working link right now, ship.page gives you a public link with no account. Every uploaded page is sent with a noindex header so search engines leave it out, and ship.page does not list uploads anywhere public, though anyone who has the link can open it.

Other drag-and-drop tools ask you to sign in before the link is truly usable for a friend. At app.netlify.com/drop, a site dropped without signing in stays behind a temporary password and expires on its own until you claim it with a Netlify account (Netlify's Drop docs also note that deploys under 50 MB work best and single files over 10 MB may get stuck). Cloudflare Drop (cloudflare.com/drop) publishes to a workers.dev address on Cloudflare Workers, not Pages, and requires a Cloudflare account within 60 minutes to keep it. Vercel Drop (vercel.com/drop) lets you deploy static sites without an account since October 19, 2026, but unclaimed deployments expire after one hour, and framework projects require a signed-in account.

When you need a custom domain or a site up to 1 GB tied to Git, GitHub Pages is the better pick. It is free for public repositories on GitHub Free at owner.github.io with a 100 GB monthly soft bandwidth limit and 10 builds an hour, though you cannot use it as free hosting for a commercial, e-commerce or SaaS business.

What to do if your HTML file uses images, CSS or audio

If you only want to host a single HTML page with inline CSS and JavaScript, drop the .html file by itself. A lone PDF, image or video file is not accepted by the uploader; it must be inside a folder or ZIP alongside an index.html file.

If your page links to local pictures, stylesheets or music files, keep them in the same folder structure, make sure the main file is named index.html, and drag the folder or a .zip onto the page to turn your HTML to a link.

• Use relative paths like images/photo.jpg instead of C:/Users/you/Desktop/photo.jpg.
• Match exact uppercase and lowercase letters in file names because paths are case-sensitive.
• Keep folder uploads under roughly 7 MB of files (sent as one 10 MB encoded request), or zip bigger folders up to 25 MB on Free and 100 MB on Pro.
• A ZIP with a single top folder is unwrapped automatically so index.html becomes the homepage.

Tip: If you just want to test pasted code before sharing, you can paste raw markup straight into ship.page or check our guide on using it as an HTML viewer.

Updating your link, custom subdomains and Pro limits

On the free plan, a page cannot be updated in place; uploading a revised file creates a new link, and pages show a small "Hosted on ship.page" badge that visitors can close. You get unlimited uploads, no bandwidth limits and up to 10 deploys a minute.

If you already sent the link to someone and spot a typo, Pro is $4 a month (monthly billing, cancel anytime) and lets you re-upload or edit a page and keep the same link. Pro removes the badge, adds password protection, lets you pick any expiry from 60 seconds (or pages don't expire while you're on Pro), raises limits to 100 MB ZIPs (400 MB unpacked), 10,000 files and 120 deploys a minute, and includes up to 5 custom subdomains like yourname.ship.place that you can point at any of your pages.