We are all familiar with the expression “If you got a hammer everything looks like a nail.” For many people, email is the hammer and local files tend to be the nail. At several occasions I’ve heard users complaining over their email service is ‘crappy’ because they cannot ‘send their files.’

Only a few years ago, the industry standard for maximum attachment sizes were one, or perhaps five megabytes. Then Gmail came along, allowing users to email files up to 25 megabytes. People were cheering. Finally they could email their 20 megabytes Power Point-presentations to 30 people in one go (without even knowing it was 600 megabyte of data that left the server). All of the sudden, Gmail’s seemingly impossible-to-fill storage quota started to fill up. First 25% full, then 50% and then exceeded 75%. How on earth did we get there? Only a few years earlier, 1GB was plenty for years worth of email.

In today’s world where people CC or forward an email to 20 people without even thinking twice, we end up with a ton of unnecessary messages in our mailbox. Now add the increased allowed attachment size to the mix, and you’ll end up with not only a ton of unnecessary emails in your inbox, but also about a gazillion of Power Point-presentations filled with bloated BMP-images of monkeys scratching their heads. (The presentation itself was less than one megabyte, but they just had to add those ‘funny’ images.)

Call me old fashion, but when it comes to email, I’m very conservative. I don’t even like HTML emails. I’m not alone though. Guy Kawasaki said the exact same thing in a blog-post titled “The Effective Emailer.” Whenever I can, I avoid attaching files to emails. If I need to send a file, my rule of thumb is that if the file exceeds 1MB, I upload the file to a server and send the link instead.

So what is wrong with emailing large files?

Reason 1: It’s ignorant. You just think about what’s easiest for you, not the recipients. Just because you can drag the file into Outlook from your office computer doesn’t mean that the recipient can download the file as easily. Perhaps the recipient is sitting on a really slow internet connection or using a smartphone to read the email. (Yes, I know some clients can download the messages without downloading the attachments, but not all.) If you would have instead sent a link to the attachment, the recipient could have easily decided if s/he wanted to take a look at it or not.

Reason 2: Email was not built to transfer file. While it is possible to transfer files trough email as most people know, it was never the intention of email. There are other, far more suited means of transferring files. In the early days, people used FTP when they wanted to share a file with other users (and many people still do). I reckon that not too many users who send 25MB Power Point-files filled with monkeys scratching their heads even know what an FTP server is (nor do they care), there are other tools.

In recent years, there have been a number of user-friendly online file storage and sharing tools launched. Two of my favorites are drop.io and Dropbox. Both of these tools allows users to easily upload and share files instead of attaching them to their email. There are also other tools, such as Google Docs and slideshare that can be used, not to mention Skype.Obviously there are certain attachments that cannot leave the company’s network, but there are internal tools, such as Sharepoint (if you’re a Windows-shop) or just a plain old network share that can do the job just fine.

Reason 3: It’s difficult to remove the attachment from an email. Perhaps you received an email from someone with a piece of information that you feel is important to save for later. The only problem was that the email also included an attachment which was not worth saving. You’re stuck with either deleting or keep the entire message. In most email clients, you cannot just discard the attachments.

Do I really think Google will lower the attachment limit in Gmail?

No, of course not. That would be very naïve to think. The problem itself is not Google’s enormous attachment limit itself. It’s rather a question about education. Many users do not know any other way of transferring files than using their email. They use their email as a file archive. They email files to themselves instead of using something more appropriate, such as Dropbox. It is our responsibility as the tech-savvy users to educate these users.