Sharing content from a Symbian phone has never been a straightforward process. It was streamlined thanks to PixelPipe's Send and Share application, which integrated into Symbian's native Send menu. Pixelpipe can simultaneously post to a vast range of services. Unfortunately, that application is no longer available, even though the service is still available via email uploading. Therefore, here is a round up of the other options for Symbian sharing. Read on to see how the All About Symbian team push content from our phones.

One of Symbian's standard sharing methods in the 'Send' menu is sending by email. This might sound like quite an antiquated way of sharing content, but email is actually a versatile tool. The downside of uploading to individual sites via email is that you must remember the correct syntax for each.

The table below has been split into content types, Images, Videos, Audio, Files and Status Updates. In the case of email solutions, hyperlinks point to the corresponding instructions for each social network. In the case of applications, each link sends you to our reviews.

In every direct email solution, you are required to add a secret email address to your contact list. Then, when composing the upload email, you address it to the correpsonding address. That means we can't provide you with an exact guide for each and every service, as the email address you'll need is different for everybody. Instead, consider this table a directory of further information!

Note: Status updates can also be sent to Twitter and Facebook via SMS

As you can see, Pixelpipe appears in every email solution. This goes to show, that even though the Send and Share application is no longer available, it is still the most comprehensive service available for Symbian. This means, sadly, that sharing on Symbian will involve writing a carefully worded email (even if the address itself is stored, ready, in your Contacts under a suitable name) to ensure the upload is handled correctly. Particular areas of deficiency for application-based uploaders on Symbian are video and FTP. This will likely not upset most users, as neither are everyday activities.

Having to use email to upload to seperate services sounds like an inconvenience, especially compared to the ease of using the now deprecated Send and Share. It sounds even more archaic when compared to the ease of sharing enjoyed by Android users. However, it does allow for a degree of flexibility. While each service has a slightly different syntax, using the email subject as the content title seems to be standard. This means that CC'ing your photos (etc) to multiple services allows you to achieve the same result as you once could with Send and Share.

An added advantage to direct uploads is that each service will generate its own short URLs, such as Flic.kr, which are recognised, and previewed, by mainstream social networking applications. In contrast, the Pi.pe domain used by Pixelpipe was only recognised by Gravity, which is Symbian-only. Emailing to Flickr has become my preferred upload method so that photos can be automatically tweeeted with the Flic.kr URL.

Overall, email is the most universal way we Symbian users have of sharing content with the world. Unfortunately, this is a few extra steps that we have to perform, but it works. For instance, at Nokia World 2010, I used my N82 to photograph the keynote presentations, and upload to the All About Symbian Flickr account via its Email application.

David Gilson for All About Symbian, 28th July 2011

Update

Thanks to Ricky Cadden for suggesting this article.

Also, thanks for the comments, I will be adding services and applications from comments. So if your favourite application or service isn't mentioned, just put it in the comments and I'll update the table!