How To Send Files That Are Bigger Than Email Sending Limit

We all have this one or two moments when we want to send some files to some people through email and then we realise that the files are too large to be sent via email.

Gmail’s attachment system is designed in such a way that for every file that is attached to a mail, when the file is encoded into the mail, the size of the attachment doubles. Meaning if you attach a file of 5 MB, the actual file available in the mail is 10MB.

Again, Gmail gives you the opportunity to only upload files lower than 25MB to mails. With the previous paragraph in mind, this means that you have literally 12.5MB space for attachments in any email you send through Gmail. So what happens when you have files bigger than this size to attach?

In this article, we shall look at two ways of sending attachments that are bigger than the sending limit.

Compress Your File Into A Zip File

If you realise that the files you wish to attach to your email are bigger than the limit, you can compress the file into a zip file in other to make the file very small in size.

Follow the steps below to compress your file. This method is for those using windows 10.

1. Open your file explorer and locate where the files you want to send are.
2. If they are more than one, hold down the control key and left-click on them individually.
3. Right-click on one of the selected files.
4. Select ‘Send to’ and then select ‘Compressed Zip Folder’

The compression should be done instantly and you should have access to your compressed zip folder.

After getting your compressed zip file, you can now open your email window and upload your compressed zip folder as an attachment to the mail.

Note however that compression-only reduces the file size by 20-40 per cent so if after compression the file is still bigger than the limit, then you should check out the next option.

Using Google Drive Attachment

Naturally, when you attach a file that exceeds the attachment limit to an email, google automatically uploads the file as a google drive attachment and adds the link to the mail so the recipient can download through the link.

However, if you are uploading many files which individually exceed the upload limits, then you need to follow the process below:

1. Log in to your Google Drive account
2. Select ‘My drive’ on the left panel
3. Select ‘Create New Folder’
4. Name your folder.
5. Open your new folder
6. Select ‘Upload files’
7. Choose the files to upload from your PC and click on open.

Once the upload is done into your google drive, open your email account and compose a new mail to the one you wish to send the files to.

Click on the Google Drive icon on the bottom of your new mail window. You’ll see all the files and folders in your google drive. Select the folder you wish to send and click on ‘Insert as Drive link’.

Conclusion

Email is one of the most secure channels for communicating online and sending files via email to another person serves as a record-keeping means and also ensures the safety of the file.

It is therefore important that all your vital documents and files are sent through email attachments. I hope this article was helpful in showing you how to send files exceeding the sending limit of your email account. Kindly endeavour to share your comments and questions with us via the comments box.