How to send large files on gmail Easy Way {2023}

How to send large files on gmail-Friends and colleagues often ask you to share very large files with them, so you thought of a way to do it without necessarily having to upload them to a USB stick or external hard drive, or rather by taking advantage of your Gmail email address . Unfortunately, however, you still don’t quite understand how to send large files with Gmail . For this reason you have decided to rely on a specific guide, practical enough to solve your doubts once and for all.

If this is really the case, I have excellent 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 via your Gmail email account.

How to send large video audio files on gmail

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

To find out how to send large files with Gmail , you must 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’s only one major distinction to keep in mind in order to successfully send large files. In fact, 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-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 mail 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 through 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, or a storage space located on remote servers and accessible to users after creating an account.

As a subscriber to 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’re curious, find out all the details in this tutorial.

In any case, using Google Drive, you can attach files up to 10 GB to emails sent from Gmail. Not really bad, right? If you do a calculation, they are 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 already told you, I will talk about sending large files up to 25 MB, and much larger attachments (up to 10 GB), using the Google Drive cloud space, both from PCs and smartphones and tablets .

Send heavy attachments

The procedure for sending large attachments of up to 25 MB 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 ) located 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 paper clip . Once you click it, a screen for browsing your system opens, so navigate through the folders to locate the file you want to attach and double-click 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 change in color 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 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 of up to 25MB following the program’s standard procedure. More info here.

Link the Drive

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

In other words, if the attachment (or attachments) are too large, Gmail itself “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.

While there’s this automatic conversion feature, I also think it’s helpful to know about the Drive link feature built into Gmail. To use it, after logging into your account and clicking on the Write button , in the bottom toolbar , 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 screen of Drive 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 recently consulted files and Upload serves instead to upload files from your computer if they aren’t already in Drive.

As far as the first tabs are concerned, you just have to navigate through the contents, 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) via 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 browse 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 mail message.

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

As can be easily understood, the procedures illustrated in this chapter of the guide only apply to the Gmail web panel and not if you use the service via an external client (e.g. 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 large attachments with Gmail from a computer, the procedure from smartphones and tablets will seem child’s play.

Yes, because the steps don’t differ much and it could be said that the main difference is the download and installation of the Gmail application . On devices with an Android operating system, 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 key , which has an image of a paper clip . Tap on it and select the Attach file item to open the file browsing screen stored on your device.

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

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

Link the Drive

If your attachment, or the total weight of all attached files, exceeds the weight of 25 MB, the Gmail app warns you with a message that the operation cannot be completed. So how to do?

Simple, in the case of attachments of greater 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 seen above for attachments, with the difference that after tapping the Attachment icon, you need to 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 just inserted.

Other methods to send large files with Gmail

The functions integrated in Gmail did not fully satisfy you for sending large files? Don’t worry, if you are looking for alternative methods to the ones I have shown you so far, you will find other solutions below that I consider to be the most practical.

• Dropbox (Web/Windows/macOS/Linux/Android/iOS/iPadOS) – certainly a point of reference and among the best cloud storage services. It is a service/program available practically everywhere (also thanks to apps and the convenient service accessible from a web browser) which allows you to share your files by creating sharing links . Basically, files stored in your Dropbox folders can be assigned web links to be sent in the body of emails written to Gmail. More info here.
• OneDrive (Web/Windows/macOS/Android/iOS/iPadOS) — Accessible directly from a Microsoft account, OneDrive is the official cloud storage service from Microsoft. With OneDrive you can share even large files with other users, also 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. It is therefore possible to 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’ve told you about so far are still not right for you, I invite you to consult the other guides I’ve made on the subject: how to send large files via email and how to send large files. I hope they help you, good luck and… happy sending!