OnionShare
A desktop app that shares files, hosts websites and runs chat rooms over Tor onion services, without accounts or third-party servers.
OnionShare at a glance
What is OnionShare?
OnionShare turns your own computer into a temporary Tor onion service. You pick files to send, open a folder to receive uploads, publish a static website or start a chat room, and the app gives you an onion address that the other side opens in Tor Browser. Traffic stays inside the Tor network, so neither party exposes its IP address and no upload service sits in the middle holding the files. Builds exist for Windows, macOS and Linux, including Flatpak and Snap packages, and translation files cover 59 interface languages.
Good fit if
- You send sensitive documents and do not want a hosted transfer service to store or see them.
- A source or colleague needs to drop files to you anonymously.
- You need a short-lived private chat or website without renting a server.
Look elsewhere if
- You want a server-based upload service with links that work in any browser: transfer.sh.
- You mainly move files between devices on the same network or nearby: DashBeam.
Before you adopt it
OnionShare is released under the GPL, version 3. Our scan flagged a separately licensed file in the desktop installer packaging (desktop/package/license.rtf) as a possible proprietary or paid part, so review it if that matters to you; the README describes no paid tier. The app is maintained by the OnionShare organization, and one developer accounts for about 89% of the 213 commits from the last 90 days. Version 2.7.2 came out in November 2026. Your computer has to stay online while sharing, and recipients need Tor Browser.
Drafted with AI from the project's README and repository data, then checked against that data on 7 November 2026. Report a correction
How to run OnionShare yourself
One-click install
Not listed in the app catalogs of Umbrel, YunoHost, TrueNAS, Unraid, CasaOS, Runtipi, Proxmox VE Helper-Scripts and Coolify.
Ways to install
- Docker files
- None in the repository
- Compose file
- None in the repository
- Setup effort
- Not rated: no compose file to judge from
- Kubernetes
- No Helm chart in the repository
- Packages
- Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, Arch Linux, AUR, Alpine, openSUSE, Nix and 4 more versions on Repology
- Desktop and mobile
- Builds for Linux, macOS, Windows in GitHub releases
- Interface languages
- 59 languages, including English, German, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Polish, Russian, Ukrainian and Turkish
Show all 59
Afrikaans, Albanian, Arabic, Armenian, Aymara, Bangla, Bosnian, Bulgarian, Catalan, Chinese, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Esperanto, Filipino, Finnish, French, Galician, Ganda, Georgian, German, Greek, Gujarati, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Irish, Japanese, Khmer, Korean, Lithuanian, Macedonian, Malay, Norwegian Bokmål, Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Punjabi, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Shona, Sinhala, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swahili, Swedish, Tamil, Telugu, Tibetan, Turkish, Ukrainian, Uyghur, Vietnamese, Wolof, Yoruba
Install instructions: onionshare.org or the README on GitHub. Docker images and packages are checked weekly.
OnionShare health: is it still maintained?
69 of 100, actively developed
Read from GitHub on 12 November 2026. How the score works
OnionShare security
Security advisories are the vulnerabilities the maintainers disclosed on GitHub, with the versions that fix them; many advisories can mean careful disclosure as much as weak code.
Latest advisories
- onionshare-cli keeps sharing after "stop sharing after files have been sent"; chat username cleaning is not applied
- OnionShare share mode single-file download bypasses the CVE-2026-54706 symlink guard and discloses files outside the shared set
- OnionShare Receive mode writes uploaded files even when file uploads are disabled
Advisories read from GitHub on 12 November 2026.
OnionShare license: is it open source?
OnionShare uses GPL-3.0, an open-source license approved by the OSI. Some features sit under a separate paid license inside the same repository.
- May 2014First published on GitHub.
- TodayGPL-3.0, with paid parts: separate license desktop/package/license.rtf.
OnionShare for developers
Written in
- Python 96%
- JavaScript 2%
- HTML 1%
- Shell <1%
- CSS <1%
- Other <1%
Getting involved
Language shares are GitHub’s count of the code in the repository.
Alternatives to OnionShare
- ZiplineA ShareX/file upload server that is easy to use, packed with features, and with an easy setup! 78 health · MIT · 3.5k stars
- pyLoadThe free and open-source Download Manager written in pure Python 66 health · AGPL-3.0 · 3.9k stars
- DashBeamShare files nearby and beyond. 77 health · AGPL-3.0 · 10.3k stars
- slskdA modern client-server application for the Soulseek file sharing network. 72 health · AGPL-3.0 · 4.3k stars
- PicoShareA minimalist, easy-to-host service for sharing images and other files 62 health · AGPL-3.0 · 3.1k stars
Questions about OnionShare
Is OnionShare open source?
Yes. OnionShare is published under GPL-3.0, an OSI-approved open-source license. Some features are kept under a separate paid license in the same repository.
Is OnionShare still maintained?
Its health score is 69 of 100 (actively developed). It had 212 commits in the last 90 days, the latest on 7 November 2026, and its latest release came out on 7 November 2026.
How do I run OnionShare?
You can run it as an app for Linux, macOS, Windows. The README on GitHub has the exact steps.
What is OnionShare written in?
OnionShare is written mainly in Python (96% of the code), by GitHub’s count of the repository.
What languages is OnionShare available in?
The repository has interface translations for 59 languages, including English, German, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Polish and Russian.
What are the alternatives to OnionShare?
Close alternatives in the File sharing category include Zipline, pyLoad, DashBeam.