How To Share Large Files Without Attaching Them

After reading some of the feedback on our post about removing items stuck in your outbox, I realized that a lot of people are trying to send some pretty large files through e-mail. Putting any issues with your e-mail service provider’s limits on large messages aside, sending large attachments through e-mail is still a bad idea for a number of reasons:

• Your recipients might not be able to receive your large files: While your e-mail server may allow you to send a large attachment, your recipient’s e-mail server might reject the message.
  
• Your e-mail might put your recipients’ mailbox over quota: Sending a large attachment in e-mail might put your recipient’s mailbox over the maximum amount of e-mail data they can have in their mailbox, preventing them from receiving other messages.
  
• Your e-mail might put your own mailbox over quota: Since each e-mail you send is retained in your sent items folder, sending large attachments to other people counts against your mailbox quota as well, which could put you over your own quota and prevent you from receiving e-mail.
  
• Attachment Bloat: When a file is attached to e-mail, it has to be encoded to be sent in the e-mail. This encoding process causes attached files to become 1.37 times larger than they were on your computer. For example, if you send a 10MB file through e-mail, you’ll actually send 13MB of data.
  
• As soon as you send it, your files will probably be out of date: It often happens that you send a file and as soon as you send it, you realize you forgot to add that one important sentence or to make that one change. Once you’ve sent it, it is too late to make an update. Your recipients’ copies will always be stale. In addition, by sending out your files as attachments, you are creating additional copies which may take on a life of their own.

Fortunately, there are a lot of alternatives for sending files to people over the Internet which avoid these problems while making sure your files get to the destination safely and securely. Depending on the type of files you want to send, the following are some of the options available to you.

All of these alternatives basically boil down to:

Put your files in a shared location and then send a link.

Sending E-mail Inside Your Organization/Company

Sharing files with others inside your organization can be accomplished in a number of ways.

Documents: Use SharePoint

If your organization uses Office SharePoint Server and provides you with a My Site you can upload your files to your My Site’s Shared Documents library, and then include a link to the file in your e-mail message. Even if your organization doesn’t provide a My Site for you, there still may be a SharePoint document library where you can upload the file and send a link. (Ask your resident IT Professional if you have a SharePoint Site you can use.)

A side benefit is that if your recipients will always have access to the latest version, instead of a stale attachment.

Copying a link from SharePoint can be a little tricky. When you have the SharePoint document library to which you’ve uploaded your file open, right click on the link to the document, and select Copy Shortcut. Then you can paste the shortcut into your e-mail and send it.

Documents: No SharePoint? Use a Shared File Server

If your organization doesn’t have SharePoint, you may have a shared file server or other location where you can copy the file and allow others to access the file without needing to send it through e-mail.

Sending Personal E-mail (i.e. outside your organization/company)

If you want to send files to people outside your organization, or you use Outlook at home or school, there are lots of other ways to share files, depending on the type of file.

Documents: Use an Office Live Workspace or Windows Live SkyDrive

If you don’t have SharePoint in your organization or are using Outlook outside of work, you can get some of the benefits of SharePoint by signing up for a free Office Live Workspace. With a Workspace, you can access and store files for yourself or share documents with other people and collaborate directly in your Workspace.

If you don’t need the full power of a Workspace, consider using a file sharing website that lets you upload any file and share those files with other people. For example, using Windows Live SkyDrive you can upload up to 5GB of files for yourself, to share with other people, or share with everyone.

Pictures: Use Photo Sharing Sites

If you are sending pictures to someone, consider resizing those pictures before you send them. With modern digital cameras, each picture can be 3MB or more when you download them from your camera. Consider reducing the size of your pictures and then sending them through e-mail. You can find out more information on how to have Outlook automatically resize your pictures for you on Office Online.

If you don’t want to resize your pictures, you can use any number of photo sharing websites where you can upload your pictures and then send a link to them in an e-mail message. For example, you could use Windows Live Spaces, Flickr, or SmugMug.

Videos: Use Video Sharing Sites

With video files, I highly recommend uploading video clips to a video sharing website or a general file sharing website. If your video is something you wouldn’t mind anyone seeing, you could upload it to a video sharing website like MSN Video or YouTube. If you want to keep your video private, consider treating the video like a document and using a method described in the Documents section above.

These are just some of the options you have for sending files to other people instead of attaching them to an e-mail. When you use one of these alternative ways to share files with your friends, family, or colleagues you help them keep your mailbox and theirs clean, and you can be sure that your file will be available no matter what service or program your e-mail recipients are using.

Ryan Gregg
Program Manager, Outlook