What is the maximum email attachment size?
The limit is 50MB for a complete email message - and that is the whole message, including its attachments, headers and any formatting.
Why you can't attach a 50MB file
Attachments have to be encoded before they can travel over email, and encoding makes them bigger - roughly a third bigger. So a 50MB message limit works out at about 35MB of actual file, and a 48MB video will bounce even though the limit says 50MB.
If you are close to the line, that is almost always the explanation.
The recipient's limit matters more than ours
Your message has to be accepted at the other end too, and many providers - including some of the largest free email services - refuse anything much smaller than 50MB. So a large attachment can leave us perfectly happily and still bounce back a few seconds later.
If a message is rejected, read the bounce you get back: it usually names the server that refused it, which tells you whether the problem is at your end or theirs.
A better way to send large files
Email was never designed to move large files around, and it shows. For anything sizeable, send a link instead:
- Your own hosting. Upload the file to your website using cPanel's File Manager and send the address. No account needed at the other end, and no third party involved.
- A transfer service such as WeTransfer, which is designed for exactly this.
- Cloud storage such as Dropbox, Google Drive or OneDrive, if you already use one.
All three are more reliable than a large attachment, and the recipient can usually download the file faster too.
