Randy said:
I keep getting error message that the attachment I send
in email is too large and must show how be broken down
into smaller pieces. What do I do?
Randy
Don't send huge files via e-mail. E-mail servers are likely to throttle
the bandwidth of a mail session (for both you and the recipient) so the
time to transfer the huge message will be slower than when using FTP or
HTTP file transfers. While you may be able to send the really huge
message, how do you know if the recipient's mailbox is as big? You
could break up the message into multiple parts so that you could send a
100MB message with each being under your ISP's mailbox quota of 10MB (so
you end up sending 10 parts) but the recipient would need to have a
100MB, or larger, mailbox (for its unused quota) to hold all those
multipart e-mails from you. Unless you have received permission from
the recipient to send a huge file via e-mail, it is considered extremely
rude to send it unannounced. You could render the recipient's mailbox
dead by using up all its quota, the recipient only gets some of your
parts, will have to yank them, wait for your mail server to retry later
for the remaining part, and continue doing this all the while that their
mailbox is unusable because its quota keeps getting used up.
While you could slice up your huge message into multiple parts (and how
depends on whatever e-mail program you use but did not mention), it is a
sloppy, rude, and crude means of transferring a huge file. Personally I
would like to see ISPs give users an option to limit the per-message
size quota so their mailbox would not accept any messages that are over,
say, 1 MB in size (the sender's mail server gets an undeliverable
notification). Instead put your file on an online server and provide a
link to it in your e-mail. That way your e-mail message remains small
and the recipient can download the file when THEY decide they want it,
not when they happen to check for whatever new e-mail they have. Your
ISP probably already provides personal web page space. Mine give me 10
or 15 megabytes. A freebie Yahoo account gives you 15MB for personal
web space (via the acquisition of GeoCities), and another 30MB for their
Briefcase (an online file storage feature). If that isn't enough space,
just open more freebie Yahoo accounts and slice your huge file into
pieces (there are freeware utilities for slicing and recombining huge
files). There are other online file storage services, like Xdrive (I
believe they require the recipient to also open a [free] account and why
I won't use them; I want the recipient to just click a link to get a
file, not sign up for a service they don't want or need themself). You
could even run an FTP server on your own host and let the recipient know
what login credentials to use (don't leave it open for just anyone to
login) and they can yank it from you as long as you are online when they
need to yank the file.
If you are obstinate and still want to flood the recipient's mailbox
with huge multipart messages and possible render dead their e-mail
account and have them wasting time doing slower file downloads (to get
the message parts) and which must be done before the user can get any
other e-mails and the recipient agrees to this situation then slice your
message into multiple parts. You will have to look in the help included
with whatever e-mail client you use. You didn't tell us which e-mail
client you use. If you hit a wall sending multipart e-mails because of
a maximum daily bandwidth quota with your ISP for your e-mail account
then you'll have to get a business account with larger daily bandwidth
limits or find a different mail server to use. I think my ISP has a 1GB
daily e-mail bandwidth limit which is about 100 times more bandwidth
than I need, along with 10MB maximum size per message and a maximum of
10 mail sessions per minute.
Remember that e-mail delivery is NOT guaranteed. It only takes losing
one part of a multipart message (containing a binary file attachment
across all those parts) to lose the entire purpose of the one multipart
message. There is also the problem that some mail servers won't handle
some content formats and may puke on really big messages (your ISP may
let you send a 10MB message [that is just one of a multipart message]
but that doesn't mean some other mail server will permit such huge
messages which would result in mangling, truncation, or refusing your
message(s). Don't use e-mail as a substitute for FTP or HTTP file
transfers. Of course, a CD in the mail works, too.
