Gmail is Google’s most widely used e-mail client. As for attachments, you can only receive those weighing up to 50 MB. However, sending is a maximum of 25 MB. This is because, of course, you can use a different platform to send them. But what if we want to exceed these limits? Fortunately, we can do so thanks to a series of tricks.
As an attachment, it’s simply impossible to send a Gmail file that exceeds 25 MB in size. Now, thanks to the e-mail client, files of any format that are heavier can be sent. Simply use any cloud storage solution, such as Google Drive itself, and send the file in question in the form of a link. By following this link in an e-mail message, the user who receives it will be able to download the file to their computer without any problem.
One of the best ways is to use external websites or applications that allow us to upload all kinds of large files (up to several gigabytes at no charge) to send just the link via Gmail and ask the person receiving the link to download it and these documents or files to the device they want.
But we don’t need to use these apps or websites (although we’ll talk about them in the next few paragraphs) if we don’t want to, we just need to follow a few simple steps in the Google email program, whether we’re doing it from the cell phone, the computer, or a tablet.
Compress the file
If the files we want to send via Gmail have a high capacity, it’s best to compress large files into a zip folder. It’s easier to transfer to other computers with zip folders because they take up less space. What’s more, it’s a good option if we have several heavy files to load, as it actually reduces the size of the files when we compress them.
If we’re using Windows, all we have to do is right-click on the file, select “Send to” and then choose “Compressed (zipped) folder”.
For some reason, zip files seem to be something that many inexperienced people reject. But it’s a very good option and can be opened on Windows, Mac, Linux, and ChromeOS without any additional software.
If we want to send a file larger than 25MB, or even a bunch of large files, it’s best to use a file compression program to create a single file and we’ll split it into five 10MB parts. In addition, attachments will be much more organized and collected in a single folder. And, even if they don’t reach the limit allowed in Gmail, some recommend doing so so that mail weighs even less.
What’s more, this solution can be used by any user, regardless of their computer skills, as we hardly need a program that offers us this option to be able to understand. In the case of Apple brand computers, in fact, it’s a function that’s natively integrated. So we won’t have to download a third-party program to be able to compress and e-mail the file.
Using Google Drive
Of course, in the Google environment, another solution is Google Drive. This way, when we send an e-mail with the Google service, we can attach Google Drive files, whether documents, photos, videos, etc. This is a solution when the files we want to send exceed the maximum file size allowed by Google’s messaging service and, what’s more, promotes collaboration with other people in documents, for example.
As these are two services from the Internet giant, the integration between the two makes them easier to use, so it’s advisable to favor this cloud storage system over the others.
What’s more, they’re constantly adding small improvements that make the process much quicker and easier to follow, preventing users from needing more than a few seconds to familiarize themselves with the system. Everything is therefore pretty intuitive.
Upload the file to Google Drive first
To send an attachment to Google Drive using Gmail, follow these steps:
- Open Gmail.
- Log in with your account.
- Click on Compose a new message.
- Click on the Google Drive icon at the bottom of the window.
- Select the file(s) you want to send.
- Choose how to send them. You can send them as a Google Drive link, valid for any type of file stored in the cloud storage service, or as an attachment, but in this case, it only works for files not created with Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, or Forms.
- Finally, click on Insert and you can already send the document, whatever the size of the file at that moment.
If we want to send files larger than the maximum permitted size of 50 MB, ideally we send them as a link to Drive. This way, the recipient only has to access the file or download it from the link in the e-mail message.
Attach and download the file at the same time
A slightly faster alternative for sending files over 25 MB using Google Drive would be this:
- Log in to your Gmail account.
- Click on the Compose button.
- Once you have all the header data and the message body, click on the Clip icon in the bottom bar to add an attachment as you usually do.
- Select the file you want to share from your local storage and click Open.
- You’ll get a warning message from Google saying that this file exceeds the 25 MB limit and indicating that it will be uploaded directly to your Google Drive account to include a link to the file in the e-mail.
- Click on the Upload and Insert button and the information will be automatically uploaded to Google Drive.
- Finally, you’ll see how at the bottom of the e-mail body the link to the file appears that you’ve uploaded. All the recipient has to do is click on the link to download it. It’s important to remember that these files count against the Google Drive storage space limit set at 15GB.
The main advantage of this second option is that you don’t need to take any previous steps, such as uploading the file to Google Drive, to share it. But everything can be done directly by attaching the file to the e-mail and letting the system upload it. This is one of the most comfortable ways we have if we want to send large files and don’t want to depend on third-party tools to carry out this procedure.
Use of external applications
We can alternate the Google Drive cloud storage service with other applications that we like more, or that are simply the ones we normally use. As we said in the first paragraphs, this is one of the most common and comfortable ways to send large files, because we won’t take up space in our Google Drive folders and we won’t have to delete these files later, we just send them and forget about them.
WeTransfer
Although there are various cloud storage solutions with which we can do this, one of the most recommended is WeTransfer. We’ll access the service and select the “ Free” option. Once we’ve given access, in the box on the left we’ll be able to upload a file and, inside the same box, the service will let us write a text message. We can put whatever we want, and it will be exactly the content of our e-mail message to the other person, next to the attached file.
If we click on the left-hand button, circular and with a colon in horizontal orientation, we can display the rest of the options. The service will ask us if we want to send an e-mail message or if we want to send it as a link. If we select this option, pressing send directly will send an e-mail message to the person we select, at the e-mail address entered. With this second option, a download link that we can attach anywhere, including our e-mail message in Gmail.
Selecting the second option as a link We can take the URL address that the service returns to us as soon as we click Send. We copy and paste this URL into our Gmail e-mail. This way, we’ll be able to send messages with attachments larger than 25 and 50 MB. Specifically, up to 2 GB, which is what WeTransfer allows in its free mode.
Dropbox
We can also use Dropbox to send large files via Gmail. It’s a tool in which we can store content in the cloud, then send a link to share it. When we create a free account, we are given 2 GB of space to store information. If we want to use it to send a file in Gmail, we need to do the following:
- Log in to Dropbox.
- Once inside, simply upload to the cloud the file or files we want to send through Gmail.
- Once all the information is in Dropbox, just mark them and click on the Transfer button that appears at the top.
- Now the file will appear in the Dropbox Transfer option and all we have to do is click on Create Transfer.
- A link automatically appears that we need to copy.
- Now we go to Gmail, write the e-mail to the person we want to send the file to, and in the message itself, paste the Dropbox Transfer link so they know where to go to download it. If we put a password, we’ll have to provide it.
It’s also easy to send large files using Dropbox and its transfer system.
iCloud
An alternative, widely used, at least by owners of some Apple devices, is iCloud, as it gives us 5GB in its cloud, and it’s currently available on any OS. It even has its own app for Windows, so it’s also very easy to upload the file to this cloud and create a public link to share it with whoever we want. The recipient can download it from the browser even if they don’t have the app.
If we need space, we’ll be able to acquire an extra 50 GB for 0.99 euros, enough now, for whatever we want to send, and we’ll just have to do it with a link, so, despite the regret, it will reach the Gmail recipient.
YouTube: For video files
Most of the time, when we want to send something that’s too large for Gmail, it’s mainly because it’s a video. Unless there are a lot of documents, we’ll never go over the limit, so we have a very simple alternative. That would be to upload the video to YouTube.
We can do this in a hidden way, so that no one will be able to see the content unless we send them the link. This is very convenient for both the sender and the receiver, as the recipient won’t have to upload a large file to another platform and download it to view it, which they might only want to view once.
In this case, the easiest way is to upload the video to YouTube ourselves and share the link, so the recipient can view it even from mobile devices without having to download 1 GB of data.
