Updated 3 November 2026

How to share a PowerPoint presentation as a link

By João Saraiva

To share a PowerPoint as a link, put the file somewhere that serves it and send the address. OneDrive, Google Drive and Solta do it for free. They differ in what the person who opens it needs, what they see on a phone, and whether you can tell it was opened.

Why a link rather than an attachment

Email has a size limit, and presentations with photos pass it quickly: 20 MB on Outlook.com and 25 MB on Gmail, as each company's help says. An attachment is also a copy. When you fix a slide, the people who have the old file keep reading the old file. A link can show the new version at the same address.

From PowerPoint, with OneDrive

1. Save the presentation to OneDrive. On a Mac, PowerPoint asks you to upload it when you share a file that is only on your computer.
2. Press Share at the top right, then Copy link.
3. Before you send it, open the link settings, choose Anyone, and untick Allow editing. Editing is on by default.

With editing off, the people you send it to can view and download it without signing in. A password and an end date for the link are only for Microsoft 365 subscribers. To stop sharing, use Share → Manage Access → Stop sharing.

With Google Drive

1. In Google Drive, press New, then File upload, and choose the .pptx.
2. Select it and press Share.
3. Under General access, choose Anyone with the link, as a Viewer.
4. Press Copy link, and send it.

Anyone with the link can open it without a Google account. You don't have to convert it: Google Slides opens a .pptx as it is, and keeps it a PowerPoint file if you edit it. A work or school account's administrator may block links for people outside the organization.

As slides, with Solta

Drop the .pptx on the PPTX viewer and you get a link that opens it as slides in the browser, one at a time, on a phone or a computer. The people who open it need no account and no app, and can download the original file. Making the link needs no account either. Without one, it lasts 24 hours: sign in to keep it.

To change the presentation, upload a new version to the same site. The link stays the same, and everyone who has it sees the new slides.

A new site is Unlisted: anyone with the link can open it, and search engines are asked not to index it. A password is on every plan, and on Pro and Team you can let in only the email addresses you invite. You see how many people opened it each day, but not who, unless the site asks for an email first, on Pro and Team.

Animations, videos and speaker notes don't come through: what shows differently.

Which one to use

• The people you send it to will edit it: OneDrive or Google Drive, with editing on.
• They only need to see it, maybe on a phone: Solta opens it as slides in the browser.
• It will change after you send it: any of the three, as long as you update the same file or site.
• You want to know it was opened: Solta counts views.

Sources

Each company's facts are what its own pages said when we read them, on 3 November 2026:

• Microsoft: share a presentation in PowerPoint and share files in OneDrive
• Microsoft: attachment size in Outlook
• Google Drive: share files and work with Office files
• Gmail: attachment size

Questions