Gmail Service: Sending File Attachment

Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo, Outlook and AOL are the top 5 email services that have the most users. According to the data of Comscore in 2012, Hotmail is in the top with more than 325 million registered users, followed by Yahoo with 298 million and Gmail with 289 million. However, some other data resources report that Gmail already surpassed Hotmail in 2012 with more than 500 million users. Sao Mai AccessTech will publish a series of articles, introducing main points that Gmail users should know about its email service. This issue article will mention some Gmail policies in sending email with attachment.

Following are the notable points:

1. File attachment size is limited to 25Mb. If it’s bigger than that, you will be asked to confirm if this should be uploaded to Google drive; and then attachment download links will be automatically inserted into your message. Users can download the file, even you delete it from your Google drive later.

2 Most of web browsers running on Windows, Android and iOS today are well supported with Gmail web interface. Google mostly suggests you to use their products to access their services like the Chrome for web browsing or Gmail app for email management. Microsoft Edge is rated highly so far, especially with its security and privacy protection features. However, screen readers such as NVDA and Jaws are not really ready for it, even it’s usable in some ways now. Both NV Access and Freedom Scientific have shown their commitment in making Edge more accessible for the blind users.

3. Some internet service providers or network systems might block the domain "mail-attachment.googleusercontent.com, so you cannot send with file attachment. That domain is used to host attachments. Hmm, but not many network systems do that, except some companies have strict security policies as this can cause virus infection, hacking the system etc.

4. To secure both the sender and receiver, Gmail doesn’t allow to attach executable files like .exe. Compressed files such as .zip, .gz, .tgz and .bz2 are not allowed if the archive contains executable file. In addition, documents with malicious code, archive containing documents requiring password and archive requiring password containing another archive file are also restricted. Following is the list of not-allowed file extensions:

.ADE, .ADP, .BAT, .CHM, .CMD, .COM, .CPL, .EXE, .HTA, .INS, .ISP, .JAR, .JS (NEW), .JSE, .LIB, .LNK, .MDE, .MSC, .MSI, .MSP, .MST, .NSH .PIF, .SCR, .SCT,

.SHB, .SYS, .VB, .VBE, .VBS, .VXD, .WSC, .WSF, .WSH

If you are sure that these files are safe to send, Google recommends you to upload to Google drive and then send it from there.

5. Do you know that images and links in the email message can spread out virus as being activated? Gmail will not only check the file attachment but also check for such causes.

If you have any further notes relating to sending file attachment topic with Gmail, please share with us via the comment section below.