The short answer
For sending unreleased music, the right tool depends on whether you are delivering files, pitching songs, or collecting feedback. If you are handing over finished files, WeTransfer or Dropbox is fine and anything more is overhead. If you are pitching to a label, an A and R or a music supervisor, use a platform that streams rather than downloads and tells you who listened, which means Disco, Songbox or Locker. If you are collecting notes from a collaborator, you want comments pinned to the timecode, which rules out plain file transfer entirely. The common mistake is using a file transfer service to pitch, which gives you no idea whether anyone played it and puts a downloadable copy of unreleased music in someone else inbox.
Last updated 20 September 2026
First, work out which of the three you are doing
Almost everyone reaches for the same link for all three of these, which is why the experience is so often frustrating on both ends. They are different jobs with different requirements, and the tool that is perfect for one is genuinely bad at another.
The distinction that matters most is between delivering and pitching. Delivering is a handover: the other person needs the actual files and the job is done when they have them. Pitching is an attention problem: you need someone busy to listen, you need to know whether they did, and you usually do not want a copy leaving your control at all.
- Delivering: mixes, masters or stems going to someone who needs the files themselves. Success is a completed download. Speed and size limits are what matter.
- Pitching: songs going to a label, an A and R, a publisher, a supervisor or a client who will decide something. Success is a listen, and then a reply. Whether they opened it is the single most useful thing to know, and most people sending music have no idea.
- Collecting feedback: works in progress going to a co-writer, a producer or a manager whose notes you need. Success is specific comments, ideally attached to the second they are about rather than written as a paragraph of "the bit after the second chorus".
What people actually use, and where each one runs out
Grouped roughly from the most common to the most specialised. Every one of these is a reasonable choice for something, and none of them is right for all three jobs.
WeTransfer
A file transfer service. Upload, get a link, send it, the link expires after a while.
Dropbox or Google Drive
General cloud storage with shareable folders and links.
SoundCloud private links
Private, unlisted tracks on SoundCloud shared by secret link.
Disco
A music platform built for catalogues and professional pitching, widely used in sync and by labels.
Songbox
A focused tool for sending music privately, with listener tracking and PIN protected links.
Locker
This is usA catalogue for unreleased music where sharing is attached to the songs rather than being a separate step.
Email attachment
Attaching the file directly to an email.
Why knowing who listened changes how you work
The most common frustration in pitching is silence, and silence is ambiguous. If you do not know whether someone opened your link, you cannot tell the difference between a no, a not yet, and an email that never arrived. Those three things need completely different responses, and guessing wrong is how people either give up too early or become a nuisance.
Listening data resolves it. If a link was opened and the first track was played for twenty seconds, that is a no and you can stop wondering. If it was never opened at all, a polite nudge is reasonable and often works. If someone played three songs to the end, that is the one to follow up on, and you know which song to lead with.
This is the single biggest practical difference between sending music with a file transfer service and sending it with something built for the job, and it is worth more than any feature list.
- Never opened: chase it, the message probably got lost.
- Opened, played briefly: it is a no. Move on without burning the relationship.
- Played through, or played more than once: lead with that song next time you speak.
Protecting unreleased music without making it annoying
There is a real tension here. Every control you add is friction for a busy person who did you the favour of opening your email, and the fastest way to not get listened to is to demand an account signup before anyone can hear a note.
The controls worth using are the ones that cost the listener almost nothing. Asking for a name before playing takes two seconds and turns an anonymous link into a record of who heard what. An expiry date costs the listener nothing at all if it is generous. A password is worth it for genuinely sensitive material and is a real cost otherwise, so use it deliberately rather than by default.
The control that matters most is the one people forget: being able to revoke a link after the fact. Music gets forwarded. A link you can switch off is the difference between a leak and an inconvenience.
- Low cost, high value: ask for a name, set a sensible expiry, keep downloads off unless they need the file.
- Use deliberately: passwords, and limiting how many times a link can be opened.
- Avoid for a pitch: anything requiring the recipient to create an account.
Feedback is a different problem from sending
If what you actually need is notes rather than a decision, the requirements change completely. The useful unit of feedback on music is a comment attached to a moment, because "the thing in the second verse" means nothing three days later and everyone involved will spend time relocating it.
File transfer gives you feedback as a paragraph in a reply, which is the worst format for it. Anything that lets a listener drop a comment at a timecode, and keeps those comments with the song rather than in a thread, will save more time than any other single change to how you work.
The related trap is version drift. If you send a mix, get notes, send a revision, and get notes on that, you need to know which version each note was about. Sending files by email makes that genuinely difficult and it is the source of an enormous amount of wasted studio time.
A reasonable default, if you want one
If you are delivering finished files to someone, use whatever is fastest, and that is usually WeTransfer or a Dropbox link. Do not overthink it.
If you are pitching, stop using file transfer. Use something that streams and reports back, whichever one you choose. The specific tool matters much less than moving off a service that leaves you guessing.
If you are collecting feedback on work in progress, pick something with timecoded comments and keep the notes attached to the version they were about. That one change will repay itself within a project.
Common questions
What is the best way to send unreleased music to a label?
Use a streaming link rather than a file, from a tool that tells you whether it was opened. Disco, Songbox and Locker all do this, and a SoundCloud private link is an acceptable fallback in the parts of the industry that still run on it. Avoid sending downloadable files to a label you do not already have a relationship with: it gives you no information about what happened and no way to withdraw the music later.
Is WeTransfer good enough for sending music to labels?
It is fine for delivering files to someone who has already said yes, and poor for pitching to someone who has not. The two problems are that it tells you nothing about whether the music was actually played, and that its links expire on its schedule rather than yours, so a pitch sitting in a busy inbox often dies before it is opened. If you are pitching rather than delivering, it is worth moving to something built for it.
How can I tell if someone listened to the music I sent?
You need a tool that streams the audio rather than handing over a file, because a download tells you only that a file moved. Platforms built for music pitching record when a link was opened, which tracks were played and how far through the listener got. Some also let you require a name before playback, so the record is attached to a person rather than an anonymous session. File transfer services and general cloud storage do not provide this.
How do I stop unreleased music from leaking when I share it?
The practical protections are: stream rather than allowing downloads, require a name or a password before playback, set an expiry date, and make sure you can revoke the link afterwards. No control survives someone recording their own screen, so the realistic goal is knowing who had access and being able to cut it off, rather than making a leak impossible. Revocation is the one people forget and the one that matters most once a link has been forwarded.
Disco or Songbox, which should I use?
Disco is the stronger choice if you are pitching at scale, working in sync, or sending to people who already use it, because there is a real benefit to being in the system the recipient already has open. Songbox is the better fit if you want the core job done simply: private links, listener tracking, PIN protection, without a catalogue platform around it. If your problem is as much about organising your own unreleased work as sending it, neither is really addressing that half and it is worth looking at tools that do both.
What is the best way to get feedback on a mix from a collaborator?
Use something that lets them comment at a specific timecode, and that keeps those comments attached to the version they were made about. Emailing a file and receiving a paragraph of notes is the common approach and it costs a surprising amount of time, both in relocating the moments being described and in working out which mix each note referred to once you have sent a revision.