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How to Send Very Large File Attachments
If you're really lucky you might be able to send a 20 megabyte file
as an email attachment and have it arrive in the recipient's Inbox.
However, for any attachment over 5mb, you can't be sure it will make it.
We can't do anything about this!
If we turned the
attachment size limit on our servers up to, say 50mb, such large attachments would certainly be refused
when we tried to send them on to the recipient's mail-server.
Using your On-Line Storage Space for Distributing Files
We've come up with a convenient alternative method to email attachments
for getting files to people across the Internet.
Every Exchange Mailbox account comes with on-line storage
space for files which can be accessed as a Web Folder, a mapped drive or
using an FTP client.
If you drag-and-drop a file to your Web Folder or
mapped drive, it's uploaded and stored in your storage areas on our server.
You need to supply a username and password to access these files so, although
it's a very useful place to store your own current, and frequently-used, files
that you want to you to access from anywhere or share with colleagues, you don't want to be handing out your password to people
outside your company to enable them to get a copy of a file in your
on-line storage.
Here's Our Solution
In everyone's on-line storage location we have created a special sub-folder called Public.
This folder allows anonymous, read-only access so that anyone
can download a file from there without having to supply a password, but
cannot change or delete any files, upload new files, or see what other files are stored in your Public
folder.
Therefore, instead of attaching the large file you want to
send to someone to an email, you copy it to this Public folder and
then send an email containing a link to this file.
For example:
If the file you've copied to the Public folder is called Brochure.pdf, the link you send will be:-
When the recipient clicks on the link in your email, the PDF file
will open in their browser where they can chose to print it or save it to their hard drive.
OK, that link looks a bit complicated, but the part before Brochure.pdf is always the same.
If you take up the option to host your company or personal website from
your on-line storage, we'll move the Public folder to be under your website folder.
The link to the file then becomes more straightforward:-
Remember that it's only you who has to
type the link correctly - the recipient only has to click on it.
What if the recipient back-spaces the link so it reads:-
They get this:-
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The recipient, or any other anonymous visitor, cannot therefore just
view a list of files in your Public folder and download anything that looks interesting.
They need to know the name of a file stored in your Public folder in order to download it.
If they backspace the link further, to your top level Web
Folder they'll get a logon prompt.
"Security through obscurity is no
security"
Meaning: you shouldn't rely on files in the
Public folder not being accessed by people you don't want to access them,
just because they don't know the file's name.
It's therefore a good idea to delete any confidential
files from the Public folder when you're sure the intended recipients have downloaded them.
The WebStats emails we send you, if we host your website, list which files have been downloaded.
This Method Doesn't Seem as Easy as Sending a File as an Email Attachment
That's because you're used to one method and not the other.
Is a new way of doing things worth the small amount of effort to learn, if it means you can get files
to people more reliably and send much larger files?
Only you have to learn about uploading files with FTP as
the people you're sending the files to will already know how to click on a link to download a file.
Using this method, the size of file you can send is now only limited by the amount of on-line storage you have,
so files of several 100mbytes should normally be OK.
If you have the storage space available, it wouldn't be unreasonable to send someone a 500mb file this way, although
the file upload and download processes might take many hours.
The fastest ADSL that's currently available gives 4mbps DOWN, 800kps UP.
(This is the 8 megabit ADSL Max connection where 4mbps download speed is what can be achieved in practice.)
Over an ADSL Max connection, a 350mb file will take a minimum of 73 minutes to upload, 15 minutes to download.
These times ignore "contention" where 20 or 50 other broadband
connections share your bandwidth but, even with contention, this is
still the most convenient way to transfer large files.
Replacing file attachments with links has several other advantages:-
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If you're sending the file to multiple
recipients, you save a lot of Internet bandwidth uploading the file once and then
sending a lot of very small emails. |
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Your Sent Items folder doesn't contain a
copy of the attached file which is usually a waste of your mailbox storage space. |
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The recipient can download the file when it's
convenient for them.
They may resent having to download the file attachment in order to
read the email text if they're on a slow Internet connection, such
as when using a mobile device. |
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File types, such as EXEs, that are blocked as
security threats by most emails systems, can still be sent this way. |
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If you find an error with the file your sending or
it goes out-of-date, you can update the copy in your on-line storage
(keeping the filename the same) hopefully before the recipient has
got round to downloading it. |
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If you have a file that you regularly send to
lots of people, like a brochure, then, if the file's already
on-line, the process is even easier and you can also include a link to the file on your website. |
You can, of course, continue to send smaller files as email attachments.
You can use Standard FTP or Secure FTP to Access On-Line Storage
If you Prefer
The process of getting files you want to send to others, into your
Public folder needs to be easy.
FTP, Secure FTP, Web Folder (or WebDAV), and Mapped Drive access to
your on-line storage location are all enabled simultaneously,
with, of course, the appropriate access permissions based on usernames and passwords so use whichever you feel most comfortable with.
My favourite is Secure FTP.
To use FTP, the hostname is
exchange.arrowmail.co.uk, supply your normal username and password
and you'll be connected to the root level of your on-line storage area.
FTP is a bit too technical for many people, but if you're familiar with it and like
it's simplicity, then go for it.
If you want to use your on-line storage space for off-site backups, then some backup up
programs don't understand Web Folders but can use FTP to perform backups.
There's more on using FTP to access your on-line storage
here.
The NetDrive program, that we recommend for
mapping on-line storage to a drive letter for the maximum compatibility
with other Windows programs, will also map an FTP server to
a drive letter thus hiding the technical details of FTP from users.
This will work with Arrowmail's on-line storage, but we recommend
mapping the drive using the Web Folder protocol instead.
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