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

Posted by msmash on 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.

37 of 51 comments (clear)

  1. Not much useful, then. by sexconker · · Score: 3, Informative

    Not much editor good.

    1. Re:Not much useful, then. by AvitarX · · 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 WallyL · · Score: 1

      Such doge! Such wow.

  2. Email is the wrong tool by sremick · · 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 · · Score: 3, Informative

      I don't normally do this, but... oblig xkcd

    2. Re:Email is the wrong tool by admin7087 · · 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 · · 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 jader3rd · · Score: 2

      If you're trying to use email to transfer files that large, you're doing it wrong.

      Why?

    5. Re:Email is the wrong tool by Anonymous Coward · · 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.

    6. Re:Email is the wrong tool by jader3rd · · 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.

    7. Re:Email is the wrong tool by Zaelath · · 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.

    8. Re:Email is the wrong tool by Hamsterdan · · 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.
  3. Re:Hot Russian Ladies Online by iggymanz · · 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?

  4. Maybe I'm oooooolllllld... by Vegan+Cyclist · · 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 · · 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 · · 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 · · 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 · · 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 wasteoid · · Score: 1

      If you had mentioned posting a file to usenet, we would know you really are old.

    6. Re:Maybe I'm oooooolllllld... by jader3rd · · 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.

  5. I'd prefer they add a different feature by 93+Escort+Wagon · · 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 · · 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 · · 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 · · 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 · · 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 lloydchristmas759 · · 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.
  6. Not much useful, then by hipp5 · · 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 prezkennedy.org · · 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
    2. Re: Not much useful, then by Coren22 · · 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?
  7. Dear Google... by SeaFox · · 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 · · 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 · · 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 · · 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 · · 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 viperidaenz · · 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.

  8. Not much useful, then? by BronsCon · · 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.
  9. Mail bomb by manu0601 · · Score: 1

    This is an improvement for mail bombers: it now takes 300 messages to fill a Gmail account.