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Solutions for Email Attachment Limitations

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You should be aware of a few limitations when sending email attachments–maybe pictures, videos, or audio or other files…

There are two main considerations when sending emails with attachments:

1. Size limitations
2. File type limitations

See the last section for file sharing tools that replace your need to send large attachments via email.

Size Limitations

When sending emails with one or more attachments that total 8 MB (megabytes) or more, you should strongly consider delivering the attachments through several emails or through a file sharing service. 8 MB is more of a round-number-guesstimate sort of number. Currently, Hotmail has the lowest message size at 10 MB, but you need to realize that the email message itself takes up some space too. Additionally, when an email message (i.e. text, attachments, meta data, etc) is sent, each server it goes through processes it and adds additional file size (minimally).

Unless you know the max attachment size you can send and all recipients can receive (see below), you’ll generally want your total message size to be 10 MB or less — 8 MB max attachment size leaves room for lots of text and processing space.

Webmail-Specific Limits

Although this information may become outdated over time, here’s what the “big 4″ webmail service providers have to say about message size limitations:

GMail

With Gmail, you can send and receive messages up to 25 megabytes (MB) in size.

Please note that you may not be able to send larger attachments to contacts who use other email services with smaller attachment limits. If your attachment bounces, you should invite them to Gmail.

http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=8770&topic=1517 (updated 2/9/2010)

Yahoo Mail

…we’ve increased the attachment limit from 10MB to 25MB

http://www.ymailblog.com/blog/2009/08/an-enhanced-yahoo-mail/ (August 24th, 2009 at 12:04 pm)

Windows Live Hotmail

With Hotmail, you can send up to 10 GB in attachments…

http://explore.live.com/windows-live-hotmail

AOL Mail

You can send and receive email messages up to 25 MB in size in the AOL service. This includes the message text, headers, and attachments. If the file that you are trying to transfer exceeds 25 MB, you will have to either compress the file or split it into smaller parts.

While using the AOL software, multiple attached files will be zipped (compressed) into a single file before you send them. The recipient of your email will need to unzip the files after downloading them. If the recipient is signed on to the AOL or CompuServe service, the files will be automatically unzipped upon download. If the recipient of your email uses a different Internet Service Provider, he or she may need special software to unzip or decompress the files.

Note: Please note that multiple files cannot be zipped into a single file in AOL WebMail.

from here

If you attach more than one file to an email you send using the AOL software, it will automatically compress all the attached files into one .zip file on Windows, or .sit file on Macintosh, when sending them to AOL members. The name of the compressed file thus created will be the name of the first item in that list of files.

By default, AOL software will also decompress .zip (on Windows) and .sit (on Macintosh) files when you download them from email you receive. You can change your download settings if you wish to decompress such files when you sign off or manually decompress them later on using other software.

Note: AOL WebMail does not compress or decompress email attachments.

from here

http://mailblog.aol.com/2010/02/11/larger-attachments-rolling-forward (Posted Feb 11th 2010 2:00PM)

File Type Limitations

We all agree that when you send an email, you want your message delivered in its entirety–not bounced back, picked out by the Spam filter, or having the message text delivered without the attachment included. Well, keep within the allowed email size limitations (above) and don’t include any attachment with one of these file extensions:

As a security measure to prevent potential viruses, Gmail doesn’t allow you to send or receive executable files (such as files ending in .exe) that could contain damaging executable code. In addition, Gmail does not allow you to send or receive files that are corrupted.

Which file types can I not send or receive?

ade, adp, bat, chm, cmd, com, cpl, exe,

hta, ins, isp, jse, lib, mde, msc, msp,

mst, pif, scr, sct, shb, sys, vb, vbe,

vbs, vxd, wsc, wsf, wsh

Gmail won’t accept these types of files even if they are sent in a zipped (.zip, .tar, .tgz, .taz, .z, .gz) format. If this type of message is sent to your Gmail address, it is bounced back to the sender automatically.

http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=6590 (updated 4/28/2010) — I bolded the ones I thought were more common.

The above file extensions are pretty common, although not all mail services with virus detection will look within a .zip folder for these file types. Thus, be extra careful when opening the contents of a .zip file.

Solutions for Sharing Larger Attachments

When your attachment is of questionable size to ensure email deliverability, you should use a file sharing service like Box.net, YouSendIt or others. You just upload files anonymously and share the link, or you create an account and can manage your shared files.

There are also backup/sync programs for your computer that also have website access. If you use Dropbox (click for a bonus 250 megabytes free storage space!), you can link to files stored in your “Public” folder. An alternative to Dropbox is ZumoDrive. Both are FREE and have smartphone apps. There are others–not all free or as user-friendly. Pick one (or both) and sign up.

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