How to send large files with Gmail

Friends and colleagues often ask you to share very large files with them, so you’ve thought of a way to do it without having to load them into a USB stick or external hard drive, or by taking advantage of your Gmail email address . Unfortunately, you still don’t know how to send large files with Gmail . For this reason you have decided to rely on a specific guide, practice just enough to solve your doubts once and for all.

If this is really the case, I have great news for you: if you are on this page, you have come to the right place at the right time! You should know that in this article I have collected all the information and complete procedures to follow to be able to send large files through your Gmail email account.

You will see, there is nothing complicated in succeeding in this operation. As I will have the pleasure to explain to you, just turn to Google Drive , the cloud storage space offered by Google, or alternative solutions and it becomes possible to send large file files via email. For all the details, just keep reading.

Index

• Preliminary information
• How to send large files with Gmail from PC
  • Send heavy attachments
  • Drive link
• How to send large files with Gmail from smartphones and tablets
  • Send heavy attachments
  • Drive link
• Other ways to send large files with Gmail

Preliminary information

To find out how to send large files with Gmail , you need to have a Google account and an email address linked to it. How do you say? Don’t have a Gmail account yet but would like to create one? No problem, you can do it in a short time by completing the very simple steps contained in my tutorial on the subject .

With your Gmail account active, there is only one main distinction to keep in mind in order to be successful at sending large files. The Google e-mail service allows the sending of attachments up to 25 MB in size . A size that for some standards, such as documents, compressed audio files or medium to high quality images, could also be considered large.

In the dedicated chapter of this guide I will explain how you can send large files of this type via email attachment with Gmail. However, you may need to send much larger files, such as Full HD videos , so what you need in this case is to send files in the order of GB.

Well, even in these cases it is possible to send heavy files using Gmail, but via Google Drive . The latter is another service signed by Google, therefore always accessible through the same account, and as you probably know it is a cloud storage service, i.e. a storage space located in remote servers and accessible to users after creating an account.

As a member of Google services you have a maximum of 15 GB free , but you can also subscribe to plans to get more cloud storage space: if you are curious, find out all the details in this tutorial .

In any case, using Google Drive, you can get to attach files up to 10 GB large to emails sent from Gmail. Not bad at all, right? If you do a math, that’s 400 times more than normal attachments!

How to send large files with Gmail from PC

Well, it’s time to roll up your sleeves and get started with the process of sending large files via Gmail. As I have already anticipated, I will talk about both sending files up to 25 MB heavy, and the case of much larger attachments (up to 10 GB), using the cloud space of Google Drive, both from PCs and from smartphones and tablets. .

Send heavy attachments

The procedure for sending attachments up to 25MB with Gmail is really simple. In fact, once you have an account to access the service, the first step is to connect to your email address from its official page .

Once inside, click the Write button (recognizable by the logo with the colored [+] symbol ) at the top left. This will open the box for writing a new email, where you can set the usual fields necessary for the correct sending of the message .

In order to send an attachment, the button to click is called Attach file , graphically represented by a paperclip . After clicking it, a navigation screen of your system opens, then navigate through the folders to locate the file to attach and double-click on it to confirm.

What to do now? Virtually nothing. With this step you have already attached the file to your email, so you just have to wait for the color of the file name (shown after the body of the message) to change from gray to blue. The color change indicates that the file has been correctly uploaded, so you can send it when you want.

Very simple, right? You have to keep in mind only two things: the first is that the size of 25 MB refers to the sum of the weight of all the attachments, the second is that if the attachments exceed this limit, they must be sent via Google Drive, as explained in the next chapter.

Note: if you want, you can also set up your Gmail account in an email client, such as Outlook , Thundrbird or Apple Mail and send attachments up to 25MB following the standard procedure provided by the program. More info here .

Drive link

The procedure I have just described is valid for sending attachments up to 25 MB, but what happens if an attachment, or the total weight of all, exceeds this limit? Contrary to what you might think, Gmail doesn’t give you an error message (at least in the computer version), it automatically loads attachments as Drive links .

In other words, if the attachment (or attachments) are too heavy, it is Gmail itself that “converts” the attachment into a download link via Drive. Thanks to this function, even if the file you want to attach is not present in your Drive cloud space, Gmail will upload and send it.

Although this automatic conversion function is present, I think it is also useful to know the Drive link function integrated in Gmail. To use it, after connecting to your account and clicking on the Write button , in the toolbar at the bottom, between the Insert emoji and Insert photo buttons , you will find the Insert file using Drive button , then click it to continue.

From the integrated Drive screen, you can see four tabs: My files are all those uploaded to your Drive, Shared with me refers to those that other users have shared with you, Recent groups the files you have just viewed and Upload is for upload files from your computer if they are not yet in Drive.

As for the first tabs, you just need to browse through the contents present, select them with a click of the mouse, then choose whether to share them as a Drive Link or Attachment (clearly the choice is forced to link if the files exceed 25 MB) through the appropriate buttons located at the bottom right and, finally, click on the blue Insert button to see them loaded in the message.

If the file is not present in your Drive, act from the Upload tab , press the Select file from device button , then navigate to the folders on your computer and choose the files to upload with a double click. Now set your preference between Drive link or attachment and click the blue Upload button to add the file to your email.

Just remember that in the case of sending files in your Google Drive account, Gmail may notify you if the recipients already have access to the file and if not, invites you to change this setting. If you like, you can learn more about file sharing through Drive by following my guide .

As easily understood, the procedures illustrated in this chapter of the guide are valid only for the Gmail web panel and not if you use the service via an external client (eg Outlook), where you could still share manually generated links on Google Drive.

How to send large files with Gmail from smartphones and tablets

If you already know the procedure for sending heavy attachments with Gmail from a computer , the procedure from smartphones and tablets will seem like a breeze.

Yes, because the steps do not differ much and it could be said that the main difference is the download and installation of the Gmail application . On devices running Android, Gmail is usually pre-installed, so if you haven’t already done so, you just need to set up Gmail .

Regarding iPhone and iPad, the configuration procedure is practically the same and the difference is only in having to first download and install the Gmail and Google Drive apps , using the usual procedure .

Send heavy attachments

To send attachments up to 25 MB, start the Gmail app on your smartphone or tablet, then tap the logo with the [+] symbol located at the bottom right to open the screen for sending a new email.

At the top of this new screen, you can find the Attachment button , marked with the image of a paper clip . Tap on it and select the Attach file item to open the navigation screen of the files stored on your device.

At this point, all you have to do is choose the file to attach by pressing on it, so as to upload it to your email. This is all about sending an attachment with a maximum weight of 25 MB, in the next chapter I tell you how to insert larger attachments using the handy link function of Drive .

You can follow a similar procedure even if you have configured your Gmail account in an external client , eg. Outlook or Apple Mail.

Drive link

If your attachment, or the total weight of all attached files, exceeds the weight of 25 MB, the Gmail app will warn you with a message about the inability to complete the operation. How then?

Simple, in the case of attachments with a heavier weight, the Google Drive service takes over, which allows you to insert an attachment via a Drive link . The procedure for inserting these links is the same as seen above for attachments, with the difference that after tapping on the Attachment icon , you must select the Insert from Google Drive item .

With the Google Drive app already installed on your device, just select the file to send as a link and tap the Select button . What remains to be done? Nothing! You just have to send everything: tap the Send button to send the email with the attachment you just inserted.

Other ways to send large files with Gmail

Didn’t the features built into Gmail fully satisfy you for sending large files? Don’t worry, if you are looking for alternative methods to those I have shown you so far, you will find below other solutions that I consider to be the most practical.

• Dropbox( Web / Windows / macOS / Linux / Android / iOS / iPadOS ) – definitely a point of reference and among the best cloud storage services . It is a service / program available practically anywhere (also thanks to the apps and the convenient service accessible from a web browser ) that allows you to share your files by creating sharing links . In practice, files stored in your Dropbox folders can be assigned web links to be sent in the body of emails written on Gmail. More info here .
• OneDrive( Web / Windows / macOS / Android / iOS / iPadOS ) – accessible directly from a Microsoft account , OneDrive is Microsoft’s official cloud storage service. With OneDrive you can share even large files with other users, and after creating an access link to a file saved in OneDrive, you can also copy and paste it into the body of an email and send it via Gmail. More info here .
• WeTransfer(Web) – WeTransfer is a web-based service (that is, it does not require the installation of programs), which allows you to enjoy uploading files to an online space (free up to 2GB) to share your files. You can then upload files to WeTransfer and share them via Gmail by pasting a sharing link in the body of the message. More info here .

If for any reason the services and tools I have told you about so far are not yet for you, I invite you to consult the other guides I have made on the subject: how to send large files via email and how to send large files . I hope they will help you, good luck and… happy sending!