In 2019, almost 300 billion emails were sent and received. There’s no doubt that you’ve sent and received quite a few of those emails yourself, and probably not without issue either.
For example, you’re probably familiar with emails not going through because your attachments are too big. This can be bothersome, especially if you need to send something important.
So would you like to know how to send large files via email? Then keep reading. Here, we’ll give you several methods so you won’t have to struggle with those annoying error messages anymore.
Compress Your Files
Did you know that you can compress your files so they can send with smaller file sizes? This can make life so much easier since it won’t cause your files to be flagged as too big to be sent.
Wondering about compressing files? It’s very easy to do.
Open Windows Explorer and locate your file. Right click on it, and under Send to, click on Compressed (zipped) folder.
This will then make your file a lot smaller in a zipped folder. When the recipient gets your email, they can then download the zipped files and unzip it with an appropriate program. They can then use the unzipped files as normal.
The above steps are for compressing files on a regular PC. If you need to zip and unzip files on a Mac, you can. The steps are very similar to how you’d compress files on a PC.
Don’t Forget to Split Things Up
Sometimes, even after you’ve compressed your files, the folder can still be too large to send by email. In that case, you’ll want to split your archives up so each file you’re sending is just under the limit.
What you’ll want to do is right click on the zipped folder and click Extract All. Now create a new zipped folder by pressing New and then Compressed (zipped) folder. Put all of the extracted files and folders into there by copying and pasting.
You can do this as many times as you want until you hit the email size limit.
Use the Cloud
In recent years, you might’ve heard about something called the cloud. This is a part of the internet where you can access any files in it remotely, regardless of where you are.
The key difference is that instead of storing these files on your computer’s hard drive, they’re on internet servers. This is what makes them accessible remotely.
Simply upload your large files onto the cloud and email the link to your recipients. They can then access the cloud and download those files onto their own devices.
If you have a Gmail account, you should start with Google Drive since you already get free access to their cloud storage. It’ll also be easier to navigate since Gmail will automatically ask you if you want to use Google Drive if your files are too big.
For those of you who use Outlook, you get a similar feature. But instead of Google Drive, it’ll ask you to upload your files to OneDrive.
Yahoo Mail also has an option to upload to either Google Drive or Dropbox.
Use the Anonymous FTP Feature
This one is a little more exclusive since you need to have your own web hosting account. But if you do, this can be a lifesaver.
In your account, you should have an anonymous FTP feature. If it’s not turned on, then get in touch with your web hosting provider to enable it.
You’ll need to log into cPanel and click on the FTP section. There should be an anonymous account.
Click on Configure FTP Client to get the name of the server. This is the server your recipients can use.
The next step is to upload your large files to the anonymous FTP folder in your web hosting account. If you can’t find it, look for something similar to public_ftp.
When you’re done uploading, your email recipient can then use their own FTP client to connect to your anonymous FTP folder. From there, they can download whatever files you’ve put into the public_ftp folder.
This can really come in handy when you have excessively large files that you need to get into other people’s hands.
Use File Transfer Websites
This doesn’t really count as using email, but we’re putting it in here anyway since it’s so helpful.
There are many third-party file transfer websites out there, and many are free! They’re very easy to use too.
Simply upload your file on the site, put in your name and message (if desired), and also the email address of the recipient. The site will then shoot off an email to the recipient, telling them that the file is ready to be downloaded.
Basically, the website acts as the file host and will allow the recipient to retrieve it for a limited amount of time. This does mean that file transfer websites come with some limitations (and sometimes, some fees), but it does offer you an additional choice to send large files with little trouble.
Know How to Send Large Files Via Email
Now you know how to send large files via email. The next time you have a big file, you won’t have to worry about struggling to send it to recipients. Instead, you can follow the steps outlined in this post to make sending emails much easier and more efficient.
So do yourself a favor and stop struggling with large files. Put your new tech knowledge to use and even impress your coworkers by effortlessly doing so!
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