How to send large files
Too big?
You will have found that when you try to send a few photographs via the traditional channels, it will often fail. This is because a batch of original-size photographs easily gobbles up a great number of megabytes, and such large attachments are generally not allowed by e-mail providers.
In an e-mail program such as Outlook, you can choose to reduce the size of photos when sending them (via Attachment Options), but there are cases when you have to deliver the photographs in their original size (for publication, for instance). And anyway, if you wish to send a large video or audio file, this size reduction option isn’t available in Outlook.
File-sharing service
In order to send large files, you can call in the help of a dedicated file-sharing service. The principle is the same almost everywhere: you should upload the file via the service’s website and subsequently enter your correspondent’s e-mail address. They will receive an e-mail message in which they can click through on a link in order to download the file in question. Normally speaking, everything happens online, so you don’t need to install any software.
YouSendIt: the most popular service
A highly popular file-sharing service is YouSendIt (http://www.yousendit.com). It requires you to register before you can start sending files. If you choose the free Lite version, the files you send mustn’t exceed 100MB. To raise this limit to 2GB, the price is $9.99 (£6.15) a month, or currently $49.99 (£31) for an entire year (special offer).
Tip. YouSendIt offers a cool extra feature: a plug-in (http://www.yousendit.com/cms/plugin-outlook/) which allows you to integrate this service in Outlook. You can now specify that attachments exceeding a given size (which you can define yourself) should be diverted via YouSendIt automatically.
No registration
What if you wish to send a large file but don’t feel like registering with a file-sharing service? Use an alternative such as Streamfile (http://www.streamfile.com), which allows you to upload files up to 150MB without any registration. If you register (free), this size limit is raised to 300MB.
Another alternative is Files2U (http://www.files2u.com): here again, no real registration is required, although you should enter your name and e-mail address when uploading a file. Moreover, Files2U makes use of a Java applet which should be loaded first - a less efficient approach. Conversely, this service, in principle, imposes no file limits.
No limits!
If you’re looking for an alternative to YouSendit which imposes no file limits at all, Files2U (see above) is a possible option. But actually, we think that SendThisFile (http://www.sendthisfile.com) is an even better service. It doesn’t impose any size limits, and it’s easier to use. It does require registration, but this is a very simple procedure.
Note. Bear in mind that most Internet browsers may have problems handling files exceeding 2GB.
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