Google Increases Gmail Attachment Limit To 50MB For Recipients (betanews.com)

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Google Increases Gmail Attachment Limit To 50MB For Recipients (betanews.com)

Posted by msmash on Thursday March 2, 2017 @08:01AM from the incremental-changes dept.

Mark Wilson, writing for BetaNews: With Gmail you can now receive attachments up to 50MB in size. It's important to note that the new attachment limit only applies to incoming email. Google would much rather you make use of Google Drive if you want to send large files to people. When it comes to sending files, you are limited to attaching up to 25MB of data in the form of one or many files. If you try to attach files that go over this limit, you'll be prompted to go down the Google Drive route instead. Not much useful, then.

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Hot Russian Ladies Online by Anonymous Coward · 2017-03-02 08:07 · Score: 0, Offtopic

Man, that blonde woman has a nice cleavage.
1. Re:Hot Russian Ladies Online by iggymanz · 2017-03-02 08:19 · Score: 1, Funny
  
  But her broken English is almost as bad as a slashdot story submitter, and she has the personality of a overflowing garbage can on a hot summer day. Wait that's also totally like a slashdot user isn't it?
Not much useful, then. by sexconker · 2017-03-02 08:07 · Score: 3, Informative

Not much editor good.
1. Re:Not much useful, then. by AvitarX · 2017-03-02 09:16 · Score: 1
  
  It's a weird claim to make too.
  They make it really easy to send where the link gets the file (which in theory is as secure as an e-mail), the real issue is someone sending me something and getting a bounce.
  
  --
  Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
2. Re:Not much useful, then. by frovingslosh · 2017-03-02 09:33 · Score: 0
  
  Really not useful since, like Google, most other mail services limit the size of attachments too.
  
  --
  I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
3. Re:Not much useful, then. by WallyL · 2017-03-03 05:23 · Score: 1
  
  Such doge! Such wow.
Email is the wrong tool by sremick · 2017-03-02 08:19 · Score: 3, Insightful

If you're trying to use email to transfer files that large, you're doing it wrong.
1. Re:Email is the wrong tool by Anonymous Coward · 2017-03-02 08:24 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  I don't normally do this, but... oblig xkcd
2. Re:Email is the wrong tool by admin7087 · 2017-03-02 08:35 · Score: 1
  
  Not if it works. Pretty simple.
  Obviously, it doesn't work with Gmail, so you're kind of right, too.
3. Re:Email is the wrong tool by ls671 · 2017-03-02 09:51 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  True enough, a 640K limit should be plenty for everybody. If nobody should ever need more than 640K...
  
  --
  Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
4. Re:Email is the wrong tool by Anonymous Coward · 2017-03-02 10:05 · Score: 0
  
  The right tool is the one that works.
  Large attachments are bad if they take up a significant part of your storage allocated to email storage or cause other technical difficulties. If google think that they have enough cheap storage to let people receive and store 50MB email attachments, and the sender is OK sending them, then I really don't see the problem.
5. Re:Email is the wrong tool by jader3rd · 2017-03-02 11:34 · Score: 2
  
  If you're trying to use email to transfer files that large, you're doing it wrong.
  Why?
6. Re:Email is the wrong tool by Zaelath · 2017-03-02 11:50 · Score: 0
  
  Multiple reasons:
  1) Most people won't accept "large*" email (admittedly the definition of large has shifted as capacity has shifted)
  2) Binary files have to be encoded as 7bit text for transmission which means your 50Mb email file can take a file that is ~37.5Mb
  2a) Your /sending/ email server may well let you upload ALL of a 500Mb file, dump it to /dev/null THEN tell you it's not taking files over 50Mb
  2b) When you split the file into 50Mb chunks it will then let you upload those too, and then tell you it's not taking your 66Mb email (see 2))
  2c) A lot of people have really shitty upload speeds which means 2a and 2b take a LOT of time.
  2d) Uploading the file to Google Drive or some other service will be a lot faster, supports resuming, and doesn't barf retrospectively.
  3) Email has to be stored for some time, on the sending and receiving email servers, for no real reason (some email servers strip sent attachments before storing)
  5) Most people don't even realise that they're still sending the email (from clients like Outlook) when the email disappears, they think it's instant.
  5a) This leads to stupidity like "have you got it yet?" moments after sending even though they haven't sent it yet, and the recipient would still need to download it as well
  6) the list goes on, but I'm bored and you stopped reading.
7. Re:Email is the wrong tool by Anonymous Coward · 2017-03-02 12:13 · Score: 0
  
  The thing with email is you don't know if it is going to work until the recipient denies ever receiving that important CAD file you sent them. It isn't just the sending server that can block the mail before you've sent it, the receiving server can also block it later, and they don't always send bounce notifications to tell you what is wrong.
8. Re:Email is the wrong tool by Lehk228 · 2017-03-02 15:36 · Score: 0
  
  because unfortunately, despite being something that people regularly want to do, moving an arbitrary size file from computer A to computer B has always been more complicated than it needs to be.
  
  --
  Snowden and Manning are heroes.
9. Re:Email is the wrong tool by Anonymous Coward · 2017-03-02 22:12 · Score: 1
  
  When transferring pictures from my Android tablet to my PC, I've found e-mail to be the easiest route. Sure it may be the wrong way, but it's still the easiest way.
  USB? Requires plugging in the cable, and figuring out the adb command line to transfer the files - or researching which other tool can do the transfer. On other devices I've always used USB mass storage, which is not supported on Android (for good reasons). The e-mail will be done transferring before I even find the cable, so why bother researching software?
  Network? Which protocol? I haven't found any "share with -> sftp" apps, and I'm not installing an insecure NFS or that old IBM protocol (SMB) just to transfer a few pictures.
  Cloud? This is the one option that's even more wrong than e-mail.
10. Re:Email is the wrong tool by jader3rd · 2017-03-03 04:59 · Score: 1
  
  and you stopped reading.
  No, I read the all.
  Question about 2d though. My understanding might be stale, but I thought that one of the ways that Google was able to save on costs, was by making all of their services use the same storage backend. So uploading to Google Drive, should take the same amount of time as uploading to GMail.
11. Re:Email is the wrong tool by Zaelath · 2017-03-05 09:53 · Score: 1
  
  2d) supposes you're one of the people who can't learn a new method of transferring files and are still using Outlook or some other "thick" email client.
12. Re:Email is the wrong tool by Hamsterdan · 2017-03-12 13:10 · Score: 1
  
  Back when I was doing tech support for an ISP, people would complain about the 5MB mailbox limit. My answer was you don't use the postal service when you move houses.
  
  --
  I've got better things to do tonight than die.
Maybe I'm oooooolllllld... by Vegan+Cyclist · 2017-03-02 08:26 · Score: 4, Interesting

I might be an old fuddy-duddy, but is it odd that I'm still irked when people email more than 1-2mb? Especially given how many file-share options exist? Until a few years ago I'd be fine with uploading a larger file to my own FTP site and sending a link to a URL, and it's so much easier now with GoogleDocs, Dropbox, etc...maybe I'm just old.
1. Re:Maybe I'm oooooolllllld... by networkBoy · 2017-03-02 08:30 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  you're old.
  but so am I, and I agree with you.
  
  --
  whois gawk date unzip strip find touch finger mount join nice man top fsck grep eject more yes exit umount sleep dump
2. Re:Maybe I'm oooooolllllld... by Anonymous Coward · 2017-03-02 08:32 · Score: 1
  
  Eh, I just sent probably around 30 megs of attachments in an email. I was sending pictures and it's a hell of a lot easier to just drag and drop rather than upload to file share site, grab link and paste into email.
3. Re:Maybe I'm oooooolllllld... by tlhIngan · 2017-03-02 09:14 · Score: 1
  
  I might be an old fuddy-duddy, but is it odd that I'm still irked when people email more than 1-2mb? Especially given how many file-share options exist? Until a few years ago I'd be fine with uploading a larger file to my own FTP site and sending a link to a URL, and it's so much easier now with GoogleDocs, Dropbox, etc...maybe I'm just old.
  What irked me more were people who used the old RapidShare etc. to do this, back when those file services gave you barely any speed and made it take hours to download a few megabytes. Oh yeah, and the 15minute delays between files didn't help matters, either...
  Luckily these days we have DropBox and GDrive and all that that give full speed file transfers so when you do send large files, the person at the other end get it at full speed... but back in the old days, it was painful.
4. Re:Maybe I'm oooooolllllld... by TeknoHog · 2017-03-02 09:30 · Score: 2
  
  I guess things would be better if people knew how email works. First you inflate the file size by some funky encoding, then you store and forward the message on all those servers. But who cares in an age where email = webmail anyway...
  
  --
  Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
5. Re:Maybe I'm oooooolllllld... by Anonymous Coward · 2017-03-02 10:07 · Score: 0
  
  DropBox now requires registration. It is no longer a viable option for sharing. Not sure about GoogleDocs.
6. Re:Maybe I'm oooooolllllld... by Anonymous Coward · 2017-03-02 10:10 · Score: 0
  
  Ah yes, I still remember the joys of uuencoded messages that would be routinely mangled by the uni's combo of dos and unix machines. Save attachment, run through dos2unix, uudecode, and it might work. I can't say that I really miss those days even slightly: PITA.
7. Re:Maybe I'm oooooolllllld... by wasteoid · 2017-03-02 10:36 · Score: 1
  
  If you had mentioned posting a file to usenet, we would know you really are old.
8. Re:Maybe I'm oooooolllllld... by jader3rd · 2017-03-02 11:33 · Score: 1
  
  Note: I'm generally a fan of sending a link, but here's the counter argument. The advantages of the attachment over the link is that the sender no longer needs to worry about hosting the data. What if the sender needs to clear up their storage space? They might delete the data that a receiver will end up relying on. As the sender, you might fret about cleaning up data you may or may not have sent links out to. With the attachment there's kind of a built in expiration of the data. In addition, the receiver might be offline in some manner, which they did not anticipate. With the link, the email client must be up and the link source must be up and connectable. But with the attachment only the email client needs to be up.
I'd prefer they add a different feature by 93+Escort+Wagon · 2017-03-02 08:26 · Score: 3, Funny

Dear Google: When a Gmail user attaches a 20+ MB file to an email and types the name of a mailing list into the "To:" field, is it too much to ask that a painful jolt of electricity be sent through the keyboard and into their body?
I know a lot of sysadmins who would upvote that RFE, if given the chance.

--
#DeleteChrome
1. Re:I'd prefer they add a different feature by gmacd · 2017-03-02 08:31 · Score: 1
  
  In the old days I remember discussing missing assembler commands. One of them was LVK or something similar. The purpose was to provide "line voltage to keyboard" as direct user feedback...
2. Re:I'd prefer they add a different feature by aicrules · 2017-03-02 08:33 · Score: 1
  
  Or that it automatically use google drive and send a link to it instead? That way you don't have to waste time thinking about file size in 2017 and beyond.
3. Re:I'd prefer they add a different feature by viperidaenz · 2017-03-02 09:15 · Score: 1
  
  But the highest voltage in my laptop is around 30 volts for the LCD backlight
4. Re:I'd prefer they add a different feature by 93+Escort+Wagon · 2017-03-02 12:59 · Score: 1
  
  I remember, in the late 70s, a teacher talking about the "HCF" assembly command - Halt and Catch Fire.
  
  --
  #DeleteChrome
5. Re:I'd prefer they add a different feature by Anonymous Coward · 2017-03-02 22:07 · Score: 0
  
  Depends on how many Ampere you get. 1 Volt may kill you and you may survive 1000 Volt, depending on the electric current.
6. Re:I'd prefer they add a different feature by lloydchristmas759 · 2017-03-03 01:34 · Score: 1
  
  Actually, 1V can never kill you, because the resistance of your body will always be too high to allow a current strong enough to kill you. Electrical safety standards usually fix the danger limit at 50V, which is the lowest voltage that could potentially kill you in some circumstances.
  
  --
  I'd give my right arm to be ambidextrous.
Not much useful, then by hipp5 · 2017-03-02 08:29 · Score: 1

Not much useful, then
You do know there are other email services, right? Services that might not have a cap on send file sizes. In other words, just because Gmail limits sending files over 25 MB, doesn't mean a 50 MB cap couldn't be useful to receive files from other senders.
1. Re: Not much useful, then by Anonymous Coward · 2017-03-02 08:37 · Score: 0
  
  Cap on Outlook, Yahoo, and even Yandex, respectively, are 20MB, 25MB, and 30MB. Which popular email client offers 50MB email attachment to senders?
2. Re: Not much useful, then by prezkennedy.org · 2017-03-02 11:20 · Score: 1
  
  The cap for an Office 365 user running Outlook is 150MB.
  
  That means they can only send it to another Office 365 user running Outlook...
  
  https://technet.microsoft.com/...
  
  --
  It started back in Team Fortress Classic
3. Re: Not much useful, then by Coren22 · 2017-03-08 08:21 · Score: 1
  
  Or you could use the 1TB of onedrive and send a sharing link to the user...
  
  --
  APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
Dear Google... by SeaFox · 2017-03-02 08:36 · Score: 1

You don't get to choose the limits for sending to recipients. The receiving server is the one that decides what they'll accept.
Why don't know invent a way to teach Joe Six Pack about appropriate resolution and quality of photos. I'm sick of dealing with people who want to know why they can't send 20 photos, each much larger than they will ever really need thanks to the megapixel race, through email.
They don't seem to get why someone would not want to down a huge batch of files they will likely look at only once and only at the resolution of their screen they are viewing their email on. Just do your friends a favor and post them in an album online, and send people a link to it.
1. Re:Dear Google... by Anonymous Coward · 2017-03-02 08:52 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  If this was 2008 maybe. I can download gigabytes worth of data a day on my phone let alone my cable internet so why the hell do we have bizarrely tiny limits on email size? Who in this day an age is going "hmmm 30 megs is way too big for me and my internet connection"?
2. Re:Dear Google... by viperidaenz · 2017-03-02 09:23 · Score: 1
  
  Because of the way email works.
  Servers have to store and forward messages they're delivering.
  Messages usually go through multiple servers, each of them has to store the entire message, sometimes for days while it attempts delivery.
3. Re:Dear Google... by tsqr · 2017-03-02 09:50 · Score: 1
  
  Just another tragedy of the commons. It works fine for me; who cares if it tears up the infrastructure?
4. Re:Dear Google... by jader3rd · 2017-03-02 11:26 · Score: 1
  
  Because of the way email works.
  And you don't think Google knows how email works? If a system can't handle a message size, it'll reject the message. As far as the fact that multiple servers will need to hold onto their copy of the message for days, big friggin' deal. It's the database that holds the message at rest which is the one that's more at risk of being overwhelmed with years of large messages. Not the en-route servers which only hold onto it for a short period of time.
5. Re:Dear Google... by Anonymous Coward · 2017-03-02 11:46 · Score: 0
  
  Capacity planning and testing was done with the somewhat hidden assumption of small message sizes. There's no real incentive to redesign that infrastructure to handle bigger messages well, the emphasis has mostly been on spam control for at least a decade.
6. Re:Dear Google... by viperidaenz · 2017-03-02 19:45 · Score: 1
  
  OK, let's say I send an email with a 100MB attachment.
  I put 100 email addresses, all at different domains in the To field.
  The server now has to send out 10GB of data.
  Meanwhile, it has to send everyone else's email too, in a reasonable time.
Not much useful, then? by BronsCon · 2017-03-02 09:55 · Score: 1

When nobody else will accept an attachment over 10MB, how useful is the ability to send them? There's a reason Google directs people to Google Drive.

--
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
Key is to split the attachments. by Anonymous Coward · 2017-03-02 10:06 · Score: 0

7zip can split archives, but I'm sure there's an email tool that will make it even easier.
Mail bomb by manu0601 · 2017-03-02 14:31 · Score: 1

This is an improvement for mail bombers: it now takes 300 messages to fill a Gmail account.
Fuck You Google! by Anonymous Coward · 2017-03-03 05:35 · Score: 0

Fuck you for clogging my bandwidth.
Fuck you for making my mail system seem inadequate for not sending/receiving 50MB attachments.
Fuck you for allowing users to think that an email mailbox is a file storage system.
Fuck you for facilitating shadow IT.
Fuck you!