Send Files Easily Using iChat

If you already use iChat to communicate and keep in touch with others, you'll find this tip useful. You can easily send a file to someone you're chatting with using iChat.

Quickly send someone a document to review together. Forward them a form to fill-out. Share a funny photo. You can do this without leaving iChat. And it's faster than sending an email.

First, open up iChat and start a chat session with someone, as you normally would. (Double-clicking their avatar icon in your buddy list is a fast way to do this.)

Next, drag a file from the Desktop or a Finder window into the chat window. The file can be a document (PDF, Word, Excel - anything really), image, audio or video.

You'll see a very little version of the document's icon in the box where you'd normally type.

If you'd like, type some text to tell the person you're chatting with what you're sending over to them. Then, hit the Return key. The file will be uploaded and transferred over the Internet.

The person you're chatting with simply clicks the file icon in the chat window (on their side, of course) to download the file to his or her computer. Image files transferred this way actually display in the chat window.