Sending Large Files

Hi. Most email systems have a limit on the size of each email message (including its attachment) you can send; trying to send an email that's too big will result in that mail being rejected, either by your sending system or the system of the recipient. Some email limits are 10MB, some 20MB, but the practical limitation is actually less than the stated amount.

What do you do when you need to send documents or photographs that are bigger than your email system can support?

This is a two part tip: the first part deals with grouping files together for more efficient sending and the second part tells you how to email those large emails. Ready? Let's go!

Part One
For our example, we'll assume you have a few large photos you want to email. Let's put them in a folder on your desktop so they're easy to find:

1. on your desktop, in an open area, right click, select 'new' and then 'folder'. When you see the new folder icon, type in a name and press 'enter'. Now you have a new folder.
   
2. put the pictures you want to email into the new folder. You can do that by dragging and dropping them in there, copying and pasting, or saving them directly to the new folder.
   
3. email systems can't email folders so we have to set the new folder up so it can be emailed. There is a utility included in Windows that compresses (i.e., makes it smaller) the folder and makes it into a zip file. To do that, right click on the folder, select 'send to' and then 'compressed (zipped) folder'. Windows will create a new icon on your desktop with your foldername and .zip as the extension. This is the file you want to email!

Part Two
Now that we've prepared the file to email, we need to send it. Of course, you can't use your regular email because the file is too large. You can right click the zip folder and look at its properties to see the file size. If it's bigger than 8MB, then use this tip. And be sure it's less than 100MB because this tip doesn't support files that big! hint: break larger files into chunks and mail them seperately.

1. to email the file, we're going to use an internet-based large file emailing service called YouSendIt. Go to http://www.yousendit.com. It's free!
   
2. you can sign up or just use the service to send your file. There's a place to enter the recipient's email address, your email address, and the file to be sent. If the file is on your desktop, it should be easy to find with the 'browse' button.
   
3. once you've filled in the details, press 'send' and you're all set!

So what's this 'yousendit' thing? I'm glad you asked. Yousendit.com acts as an intermediary between email senders and recipients, allowing the transfer of large files (for our example) as well as secure, encrypted files. Take a look around the yousendit.com site and check out the services available there. Anyway, when you press 'send', your large file is uploaded to yousendit.com's servers and kept there for seven days. An email is sent to the recipient with a link to the large file. When the recipient opens the email from Yousendit.com, s/he'll see a link to the large file. Clicking the link downloads the file from yousentit.com to the recipient's computer, bypassing the large-file-email restriction.

There are other internet services that send large files for free. Do an internet search for 'large file email' or 'transfer' and you can see them. I've used yousendit.com for years and have found it to be very cool.

Enjoy! And leave me a comment to let me know how you liked this.