How to Send Files Bigger than 25MB
When email isn’t an option, Smash is your best bet. It’s faster, greener, and more secure – try it today!
IN THIS GUIDE, YOU’RE GOING TO READ THE 4 OPTIONS TO SEND FILES BIGGER THAN 25MB:
1. Smash
You’re probably used to running into issues sending a very large file. When you’re sending a 2GB video file or a folder of images that tops out at 5GB, you’re already resigned to using something that an email attachment or dragging-and-dropping the file or folder into a text messaging app.
But in these days of large files and lightning fast cable internet connections, you might not expect a 25MB to present the same issues. It’s relatively small, and you’ve likely got PowerPoint files or even Excel sheets that are larger than this, let along creative content and media. But the reality is that email (sent with an email provider such as Outlook) and text messages aren’t built to transfer even 25MB files with ease. Even if you aren’t sending a file that is 2GB or larger, you are going to need to find a way to get that file where it needs to be.
Four Ways to Share a 25MB File
When a file is measured in gigabytes, your options for sending it to your friends, colleagues, or clients can be limited. But even though your file is ‘only’ 25MB, that’s still usually too heavy for a single email attachment no matter who you send email with. You might quickly find yourself stuck and searching for a solution; luckily, you have a few options on your desktop or mobile device that you can select from. Here are four you might consider:
Smash
Cloud + Email
Multiple Emails
File Storage Service
We’ll compare these four across four criteria:
Speed – does it get the file where it needs to go fast
Security – is your file safe during transfer and can you protect that transfer with a password
Ease of use – is it a pain to use or does the interface make it easy
Environmental impact – is it green or is it contributing to a carbon footprint nightmare
1. Send Files Larger than 25MB with Smash
Smash is a file transfer service that’s designed to share large files rapidly, securely, and with ease on both ends of the transfer. Embracing cutting edge technologies and offering industry-leading encryption and file security as standard features – even for the free tier! – Smash has established itself as a popular option for sending files that are too big to attach to an email with ease.
Indeed, with its plugin for Outlook, Smash has developed the easiest way to bypass email provider limits on attachments, especially Outlook ones. You can now send files or folders of any size, even larger than the 20MB Outlook size limit.
Smash plugin is so easy to use: once selected, your files are sent, directly through Outlook. Say goodbye to attachments and restrictions. You’re also contributing to digital responsibility: files are not even more stored for an unlimited period as an email attachment. They are stored for an ephemeral period, on a server close to you.
Here’s a quick step-by-step guide to send files over 25MB with Smash plugin:
Install the plugin through the Microsoft store, for free
Click on the “new message” tab in Outlook, click on the Smash logo and login to your account
Select or drag & drop your files and folders
Set up some parameters if you want to, via the “toothed wheel” icon: password protection, availability period (up to 30 days), download notification…
Click on “OK” and “Next”. Your files are uploading… and a link will be generated.
Just click on “attach to email” and that’s it! Your link to download your files is in your email and ready to be sent to your recipient.
You can also watch our step-by-step YouTube video to start sending files with the Smash plugin for Outlook. A paid account is required to use Smash plugin.
If you don’t have a Smash account, no worries. Smash has other easy way to send your more than 25MB files.
Here’s how easy it is to transfer a 25MB file with Smash online:
Go to the Smash website
Click on the icon in the center of the page and select your file from the desktop
Enter your email address and click Get a Link
(You can also customize the link, password protect the file, and give it a title, too, if you like)Copy the link and send it on to your recipient
When it comes to speed, it’s super-fast. As soon as you’ve uploaded your file it is available for your recipient to download. Every transfer is encrypted with 256-bit AES and SSL/TLS, and it is one of the only file transfer services to offer password protection on every transfer for free. Smash is a breeze to use, and it’s green, too, so you can rest easy knowing your file isn’t sitting on a server indefinitely with a carbon cost to pay.
2. Use Cloud services + Email to share more than 25MB
Email is ubiquitous and are often the first resort for people trying to send files. Attaching a file to an email is straightforward, but a 25MB file is going to be rejected every time: even if your email server is somehow happy to send it, no other service is going to accept it. To make things a little easier on email users, major providers like Microsoft and Google have combined their email offering with their cloud storage offering to provide a workflow that might solve your sharing problem. Here’s how it works with Gmail and Google Drive:
Open Gmail
Compose your email, then click on the attachment icon
Select your file, files, or folder
When Gmail recognizes that the files are larger than can be attached, it will automatically upload them to your Google Drive and insert a link in your email
How does this automated workflow stack up? It does well when it comes to speed and ease of use, both of which are as good as anything else you’ll find. It’s also secure as Google will encrypt the file in transferring it to Google Drive and it is stored securely there, too. On the environmental front, though, there’s a cost. That file that you are sending is magically whipped away to the cloud…where it stays. Indefinitely. There’s a carbon emissions cost to that and, even if it is lower than that of a single email, the fast it lives on a server and is likely never touched again comes at a price.
3. Split your 25MB Files and Send them in Multiple Emails
Your 25MB file is too big to attach to one email…but what about two emails? As a hack, it’s a basic one but it might be attractive if you absolutely, positively want to use email to send your file where it needs to go. There’s a bit more work to do on both the sending and the receiving end to make this work, but it might get the job done in a pinch. It won’t work for every file but let’s imagine you have a large PowerPoint file you want to transfer to a client – here’s what you will have to do:
Split your 25MB PowerPoint file into multiple parts by saving groups of slides
(For example, save the first ten slides as ‘Important PPT Part 1’ and the second ten slides as ‘Important PPT Part 2’)Compose an email explaining that you’re sending the file in parts that will need to be spliced together
Send ‘Important PPT Part 1’ as an attachment to an email
Compose another email and attach ‘Important PPT Part 2’, then click send
Double-check that your file is combined successfully on the other end
Just from that description it should be clear that this is probably not your best option for sending a 25MB file. There’s extra work for the sending party and the receiving party, which makes it slower from the start. Add to this you need to cut and splice files in the process and your ease of use is challenged, too. Security should be fine as the email service is transferring things as securely as it would a sharing link. On the environmental side of the ledger, though, there’s extra costs: those multiple emails are going to sit on different servers forever chewing up carbon even if the file never gets a second look once it is spliced back together. It will work, but it is far from the preferred option for transferring a 25MB file.
4. Share Files Over 25MB with a File Storage Service
If your aim is to send a file your mind might not immediately go to a file storage service. Yet it’s an option you might consider on its own instead of with automated Gmail/Drive or Outlook/OneDrive use case explored above. File storage services from Google, Microsoft, Apple, and Amazon (among others) are built for storing files but all offer easy ways to share those files, too. There is a potential advantage in sharing via the file storage service instead of the automated email link, too: you can share the same file but with different sharing settings for different recipients. Thus, your colleague gets the version of the file with editing permissions, while the client gets the locked down, read-only version. The workflow varies a little between each service, but here’s how it is done with Google Drive:
Go to the Google Drive website and log in with your Google Account
Select Upload and then select the file on your desktop or mobile device, and click OK
When the file has completed uploading, select the file, right click, and select Share
Choose between sending a link by email from Google Drive, or click the Link icon to copy it to an email or instant message
How does a service like Google Drive compare? There’s speed, for sure, because the moment you’ve uploaded your file and generated the sharing link, you can share that file. Everything is stored securely on Google’s encrypted servers and the downloads are secure. A word of warning, though: if you don’t have your sharing settings locked down you might be opening up your file for editing, so beware. The Google UI is built for storage rather than sharing but sharing is still only a couple of clicks away. On the downside – and it’s a significant downside considering Google’s scale – there’s a relatively big environmental cost to storing files on servers indefinitely, especially if you only upload and share them once.
The Best Way to Transfer a 25MB File
Four options, which one is best? Assessed across the four key criteria, there’s one that comes out on top: Smash.
| Speed | Security | Ease of Use | Environment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Smash | ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ | ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ | ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ | ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ |
| Cloud + Email | ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ | ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ | ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ | ★ ★ ★ |
| Multiple Emails | ★ ★ ★ ★ | ★ ★ ★ ★ | ★ ★ ★ | ★ ★ ★ |
| File Storage Service | ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ | ★ ★ ★ ★ | ★ ★ ★ ★ | ★ ★ ★ |
Smash matches every other option when it comes to speed but it’s ahead of the rest when talking security. Every option is encrypted end-to-end, but only Smash offers additional password protections on its transfers. Smash is as easy to use as a text message or email – and easier to manage than dealing with sharing settings on a file storage service – and it’s the only option that lives up to the green credentials expected of a leading business in the 2020s.
When you have a 25MB file or folder to send, then, Smash is your best choice. Try Smash today for free on the web or test a transfer on one of its dedicated mobile apps for iOS or Android. There’s a Mac app, too, and if you create a Smash account, you can use the Outlook email plugin on Windows, Mac, or the web. Finally, for developers, there is a dedicated API. Don’t delay: start sending and sharing files with Smash today!
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