A single recorded lecture in decent quality can run 500 MB to a couple of gigabytes depending on length and resolution. A full course a dozen or more sessions, plus slide decks, handouts, and supplementary readings adds up to a genuinely large amount of data, and it needs to reach every student reliably, not just the ones with a fast connection or the patience to fight an upload portal.
Why the LMS isn't always the answer
Learning management systems are built for structuring a course, tracking progress, and grading not necessarily for hosting large video files. Many LMS platforms cap individual uploads well under a gigabyte, or quietly re-compress video on ingestion, which is fine for a short clip and frustrating for a full lecture recording. When the platform itself becomes the bottleneck, the workaround is usually to host the file elsewhere and link to it from inside the course which only works if that outside link is actually reliable.
Email and classroom tools have the same ceiling everyone else does
Gmail caps attachments at 25 MB combined, Google Classroom and similar tools inherit Google Drive's per-account storage limits, and a messaging app will compress video on the way through regardless of what you intended students to see. None of these were built with a 90-minute lecture recording in mind. A direct download link sidesteps all of it no recompression, no shared storage pool running out mid-semester.
Not every student has (or wants) another account
Requiring students to create an account on a separate platform just to download a lecture recording is friction that costs you attendance on the materials, not just annoyance. A link that works with a click — no sign-up, no app install removes the single biggest reason a student gives up and asks a classmate to forward it to them later, at lower quality, through whatever app happens to be open.
Keeping materials organized across a whole term
A single semester produces a lot of files, and "which link did I send for week 6" becomes a real problem by week 10 if every file goes out as a one-off email attachment. Keeping one link per session, named consistently, gives both you and your students a reliable way to find the right file later especially useful when a student missed a class and needs to catch up without digging through old messages.
For trainers and corporate instructors
The same problem shows up outside a classroom: an internal training video, a workshop recording, a certification course's resource pack. Participants usually aren't on your company's systems and shouldn't need to be given access to one just to watch a recording after the fact. A plain link sent after the session closes that gap without an IT request.
What to look for
- No size ceiling that forces you to compress a lecture into a worse version of itself.
- No account required for students or trainees — the materials should be one click away, not behind a registration form.
- A link that still works weeks later, for the student catching up after the fact, not just the one who downloaded it the same day.
- Room for a whole session's worth of files — recording, slides, and handouts together, not split across three separate uploads.
On Letshareit, a lecture recording or a full session's materials go out as one link, playable and downloadable with no account required on the student's end. Free uploads cover files up to 4 GB enough for most single sessions and paid plans raise that ceiling for a full course archive.
