Uploading & downloading

Download and upload refer to the transfer of information between computers.

The person/computer sending the information refers to the transfer as an upload, while the person/computer receiving the information refers to it as a download.

These are the definitions used by ISPs. If the customer is sending information, it is an upload; if they are receiving information, it is a download.

Most people use the term download when they are receiving a file, and upload when they are sending a file over the Internet.

In either case, information is transferred both ways to manage the download. This is often the reason people get confused.

The act of transferring a file from one web server to another, while technically a simultaneous download and upload, is often called sideloading.

An exception is when talking about data transfers between space vehicles and ground stations; in this case, every transfer from the space vehicle is a download, while every transfer to it is an upload.

As a noun, a download or upload is the information transferred or the act of transferring it.

In surfing the World Wide Web the term downloading is not usually used for simply bringing up a web page, but rather for transferring a larger file and/or directly saving it. In a network, the term downloading is not usually used for copying files from one network device to another even if one computer is acting as a host (see copy.)

See also