How to send a large file by email

You cannot attach a very large file directly to an email. Gmail and Yahoo stop at 25 MB, Outlook.com at 20 MB, and because attachments are encoded on the way out, the real usable limit is roughly a quarter smaller. The fix is to send a link to the file instead of the file itself. Below are the four main ways to do that, from quickest to most fiddly.

Upload the file to a transfer service, then paste the download link or password into your email. With Skypost you drop the file in, get three words like "maple-river-cloud", and write those words in your email. The recipient types them in at skypost.co.uk/receive. No accounts on either side.

Skypost Free handles files up to 200 MB each and keeps them for 7 days. Pro goes up to 5 GB per file.

Gmail offers to put big attachments in Google Drive and insert a link. Outlook does the same with OneDrive, and Apple Mail uses Mail Drop for files up to 5 GB. These work well if both of you use the same ecosystem, but you have to check the sharing settings so the recipient can actually open the file, and the file stays in your drive until you delete it.

Zipping helps with documents and spreadsheets, sometimes a lot. It does almost nothing for photos, videos or PDFs that are already compressed. If your file is 30 MB, zipping might squeeze it under the limit. If it is 300 MB, it will not. More on this in should you zip files before sending?

Some zip tools can split an archive into parts that each fit under the limit. It works, but the recipient has to download every part and rejoin them in the right order. Save this for when nothing else is allowed.

For a one-off large file, a transfer service is quickest and needs nothing from the recipient. For files you want to keep shared long-term, a cloud drive makes more sense. If the file is sensitive, choose something that encrypts files and deletes them automatically, as covered in how to send files securely.