One of the most common requests we get at our help desk is to help a user send or receive a large attachment via email. Traditionally this was a problem primarily faced by artists and designers as they tried to send and receive large graphic files. Today, the challenge has spread to almost everyone as an increase in sending digital photos, large PowerPoint presentations, PDFs, drawings, and multimedia files has become commonplace for almost all businesses.
Why Sending Attachments via Email is Bad
We’ve all been there – we get the dreaded popup message from Outlook that we need to free up some space. As more and more large attachments are sent and received, your allocated Outlook storage quota will be reached much faster. What’s worse is that your email server is filling up rapidly too. It’s estimated that over 95% of a typical email server’s storage is consumed with attachments. That’s valuable space that is needlessly dedicated to attached files. This also has a major impact on the speed of your email system.
Though it can often seem like it, sending an email is not like instant messaging. Email must be processed by your computer’s mail program, through your company’s network to your email server, and finally out onto the Internet. Before it reaches the recipient, it is probably going to experience at least 1 trip through a spam filtering service. Once it reaches the recipient, it must be processed by the inbound server, and ultimately downloaded and delivered to the recipient’s email program.
With large attachments clogging up the works, there’s no wonder we’re all experiencing slow delivery times and bounce-backs. The challenge for your IT support team is that they only control half of the equation. Your server may be setup to send large attachments, but your recipient’s server may have a stricter limit. So, what are the alternatives?
File Transfer Services
There are services out there that designed with sole purpose of addressing this issue. One of my favorites is yousendit.com. In it’s simplest form, yousendit.com allows you to upload a file to their secure servers where it can be downloaded by your recipient. Once your file is uploaded, yousendit provides you with a link to download the file. This link can be easily and quickly emailed or sent via instant message to your recipient. Each link has a predetermined expiration date which helps insure the security of your files.
yousendit.com offers a free trial and a free “Lite” package which works perfectly if you don’t need to send large files very often. If you need to send more often, there are some plan that require payment, but also come with some advanced options like additional storage and larger size limits.
Lastly, yousendit.com fits into your existing workflow by integrating directly into Microsoft Outlook via a plug-in. The plug-in puts a yousendit button directly in Outlook so sending a large file is very straightforward.
Dropbox
As we’ve discussed before, Dropbox is a wonderful tool for keeping your files and folders backed up and in sync. Dropbox can also help you share large files and avoid the hassles of attachments. From your Dropbox folder,create a new sub-folder containing the files you want to share. Right-click this folder and click on Dropbox from the menu. Under Dropbox, there is an option to “Share this folder.” Once selected, you will get a pop-up box that will let you enter the email addresses of your desired recipients. One of the great things about this method is that you will get a confirmation email whenever the folder is accessed.
You also have the option of placing a file in you Dropbox Public folder. Right-clicking a file in your Public folder gives you the option to “Copy Public Link” which can then be pasted in an email to your recipient.
If you are already using Dropbox for your folder syncing, you already have everything you need to start eliminating the headaches of sending large attachments via email.
FTP Replacements
Many companies need to exchange large files with their clients. There are a lot of companies still using FTP servers for this. FTP, or File Transfer Protocol, is an older technology and is inherently unsecured. Because of this, many companies that have FTP solutions in place have resorted to exchanging files via email. This can be particularly troubling for companies that deal in sensitive materials such as defense contractors.
There are many FTP replacement services available that provide the necessary levels of security and protection that FTP is lacking. One example is ShareFile.com. ShareFile allows companies to easily replace their outdated FTP solutions with new, secure technology. ShareFile even allows you to add your own logo to create a provide branded file sharing portal for your business. ShareFile also has many other bells and whistles including Outlook integration, desktop syncing, and even a mobile app. For solutions where security and compliance are a major concern, services like ShareFile are a great alternative to FTP and email.
There are many alternatives to each of these products – these just happen to be some that I’m familiar with. Each business will have it’s own needs and reasons for picking one solution over another. The important thing is to get out of the habit of sending everything via email.
DropBox rules. I use it all the time here at Turbine and also in my other businesses. It’s especially good for sharing really big files like videos.