How to (not) e-mail video files

I’m trying to send a video file to a friend via e-mail
and she keeps telling me that she gets the message but not
the attachment. What am I doing wrong?

– Rhonda

Video files tend to be very large files that often exceed
the file size limitations of most mail systems, resulting
in the recipient getting the message with the attachment
stripped out.

Both your mail system and your recipient’s mail system
come into play and the lower limit between the two of you
will be the maximum size you can send.

For instance, if you are using Gmail (which has a 25Mb
limit) and your friend’s part of a corporate Microsoft
Exchange Server that has a 10Mb limit, you can’t send
files larger than her limit.

Every e-mail system and e-mail program has its own file
size restrictions, so trying to figure out who has what
limitation can be time consuming or downright impossible.

Even if there weren’t file size limitations, sending a
video file as an attachment to someone via e-mail is a bad
idea for a number of reasons.

Since opening file attachments in general is considered to
be risky behavior, don’t put your friends in a position of
trying to figure out if your message is legit or not
(remember, scammers can spoof your e-mail address making
any message appear to be from a friend).

Another reason to avoid this method is that it’s really
inefficient; you have to wait for your mail system to
upload the file and then your recipient has to wait for
the file to download. If their connection is slow, you
will clog up their e-mail program while it attempts to
download the huge file often making them think something
is wrong with their e-mail program.

Fortunately, there are a host of options that are more
efficient and more reliable and the best part is that most
of them are free.

Before you choose one of the following methods, it would
be good for you to know how big the file you are trying to
send is, so you can choose the best solution.

If you send large files infrequently and rarely to the
same person, you can use a site such as http://TransferBigFiles.com which is
essentially an online file transfer service.

The basic service is free and allows you to send one or
many files as long as you don’t exceed 100MBs total (which
can be less than 1 minute of HD video depending upon how
you shot it). It also allows you to send the file(s) to
as many as 20 recipients and the files are available for 5
days. One of the reasons I like this site is that it
doesn’t require you to sign up for an account to send or
receive the files and the file transfers are relatively
quick.

If you need to send files larger than 100MBs, you can
purchase credits that allow you to send files up to 2GBs
that can be downloaded up to 100 times.

If you need to send really large files on a regular basis,
you can sign up for their various plans that start at $5
per month.

Another option is http://Free.MailBigFile.com which allows
you to send a single file up to 300MBs to a single
recipient.

If you aren’t concerned about the speed of the upload and
download, you can use http://SendThisFile.com to send files up
to 2GBs for free, but understand that this free service
throttles down the speeds to encourage you to upgrade to a
pay package. This means, the larger the file, the more
likely you or your recipient will be frustrated waiting
for the file to transfer.

There are a number of slightly more complicated options
you can consider, such as uploading the video to YouTube.com or
Vimeo.com or
if you need to collaborate privately on a regular basis
with a group, setting up an account on services such as DropBox.com, Box.com, Google
Drive or Microsoft’s Sky Drive may make the most
sense.

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