How to send email with attachments in Outlook and know the size limitations of these files? step by step guide

Regardless of what we use our Outlook email account for work use or just to share information with personal acquaintances, this versatile mail service gives us access to a large number of tools.

One of the most basic functions of an email service like Outlook, is the ability to send attachments of all kinds. This possibility greatly enhances the efficiency of personal and professional communication between users.

In the next few paragraphs, you’ll learn everything you need to know about how Outlook attachments workfrom their maximum weight and acceptable formats, to how to send them from any storage medium.

What is the maximum weight allowed for an attachment in Outlook?

Outlook contains a feature that limits the size of attachments, in order to avoid uploading files that exceed the size limit offered by most internet service providers.

As usual, Outlook mail accounts handle a combined file size limit of 20MBwhile for the accounts of microsoftexchange, the maximum combined file size is 10MB. Attempting to upload files, either individually or together, Exceeding these limits will generate an error alert.

However, there are methods by which we can prevent this error and continue with the file transfer function:

• Save the file in the cloud and send the link.
• Compress the file.
• Reduce the size of the file (in the case of images).

What formats can be sent as attachments in Outlook?

For specify format type that can be attached to an Outlook mail, you need to specify the type of file you want to sendas Outlook supports the ability to share various types of files in your emails. Outlook allows you to attach to your emails audio, video, text or image files in various formats.

Depending on each file and its format, the weight can vary greatly, affecting the number of elements that can be attached to the mail:

Image

Outlook mail service gives us the possibility to attach photos, model images, advertisements and any other type of graphic content in their emails, to share them with whomever the user deems necessary.

Acceptable image formats as attachments are:

• JPG: standard format photos.
• PNG: especially useful to be used in browsers.
• GIFs: short animations and static images.
• SVG: Resizable vectors that can be static or animated images.

Video

This kind of files can be summarized in advertising, promotional videos, or projects of a work or school nature. They are among the heaviest attachments, so you need to be careful with them.

Outlook supports the following video formats:

• MP4: format capable of simultaneously storing audio, video and subtitles.
• WMV: video compression format developed by Windows for its native player.
• 3GP: is a video format used by old mobile phones to save multimedia content.
• FLV: obsolete format that was native to Adobe Flash, most of the animations were concentrated there.
• MOV: With this format, the videos are saved with Apple’s proprietary compression algorithm.
• M4V: have the possibility of being protected by a digital rights manager.
• MPG: it is a compressed format that limits the loss of audio and video quality.
• AVI: allows you to store video and audio streams simultaneously, but without compression.

documents

It is one of the most commonly shared file types via email.and has a substantial variety of formats that denote each type of document.

These are:

• DOC/DOCX: structured document, prepared through a word processor such as Microsoft Word.
• XLS/XLSX: standard file format for spreadsheets or graphical tables created in Excel, or similar programs.
• PPT/PPTX: describes documents produced in programs such as Microsoft PowerPoint, which corresponds to slide presentations. These files can contain text, images or videos.
• PDF: standard format for digitized and portable documents, without loss of quality.
• RTF: extension relative to text files.
• TXT: this format describes plain text files generated by the Bloc application.
• ODT: this extension is used for office file storage.

Audio

Right after the video files, the audio ones correspond to the most voluminous file types that are accepted as attachments in Outlook. These can be songs, short audio recordings or other types of audio files, described with the following formats:

• MP3: audio format used to play music on both computers and portable players.
• WAV: used to store digital audio streams on PCs with various resolutions and characteristics.
• MP4: stores better quality audio, as well as video and other content.
• CCA: format based on a lossy compression algorithm, which seeks to emulate the quality of the original audio with the smallest possible size.
• AIFF: audio standard used to store audio files on computers.
• OGG: audio compression format that offers high quality in a fairly compact file.
• WEBM: multimedia extension used for streaming playback of audio and video files.

Learn how to send an email with an attachment in Outlook

The attachment sharing feature of Outlook is available on all devices, for all operating systemsso we can share the necessary information at all times, regardless of where we are.

The procedure to attach files to Outlook is relatively similar, both in its mobile version and in the web portal, so that you can easily do it regardless of the device you use:

From the phone

The provision of app hits makes it much easier to send attachmentsregardless of what type it is.

To do so, you just have to enter the Outlook application on your mobile and follow the procedure described below:

• From the main screenpress the pencil icon located in the lower right corner.

• On the mail writing screen, enter the content of the mail, that is, recipient, subject and body of the email.
• Select the clip iconvisible on the bottom toolbar.

• Choose the option “Choose file”.
• Select the type of file you want to send from the browser. From here, you can choose documents or image, audio and video files.

• Click on “Send”, marked as an arrow in the upper right corner.

From the computer

This function is available from the Outlook web application, and is based on a very simple process, which simply consists of selecting the file from among those saved on the computer’s storage:

• Log in in the Outlook web portal.
• click in “New message”.

• Enter the recipient, subject and content of the message. Then click on the clip icon
• Choose the option “Examine this computer.”

• Find the file that you want to share in the search engine that will open.
• Once the file is uploaded, click on “Send”.

With a cloud service

One of the best ways to share large sets of files through Outlook, is by uploading said files to a cloud service, and share the link of said service by means of an email. There are many file hosting services that we can use, and whose links can be sent by email.

For the purposes of this guide, we will take Dropbox as an example, one of the best known and most used hosting clouds:

• Log in in your Dropbox account.

• Choose the left sidebar and click “All the files”.
• Select the file or folder what do you want Send.

• Click on the icon “Share”, identified as a rectangle with an arrow pointing up.
• Do click in the link “Setting” in order to create the link.
• Choose “Create link”, then click “Cancel”.
• Select the new link which you will see next, described as “Copy link”.

Dropbox has a default configuration that allows anyone who has the access link to the file to see it. This is a setting that you can modify when creating the link.

Once the link is copied to your computer’s clipboard, all that’s left to do is send it via email, all you have to do is:

• Open the window of messages in your mail Outlook.
• paste the link Dropbox file access.
• Send the email.

The best cloud services to send large files via Outlook

Due to the size limit of attachments in Outlookthe best way to work with large files and folders by mailis through links of cloud storage services. Usually, Most of these services have the function of sharing links, so that any user can view the documents sent.

For this reason, any of the hosts mentioned below can work in conjunction with Outlook:

OneDrive

It’s a cloud file hosting servicedesigned by microsoft, and that is part of your Office 365 suite of applications. It offers free 5GB storage. It has the possibility of uploading up to five files at the same time, with the possibility of integrating a tool ActiveX, It allows you to upload an unlimited number of files from your computer. It also has a web platform and applications for Windows 8, Windows 10, iOS and Android..

drop box

As one of the most used hosting services to date, drop box It has a series of features and functions that make it one of the best options to work with Outlook. There are free and paid versions. each of which has different characteristics, but in general, the Dropbox service allows you to store and share files online, in addition to synchronization between devices.

mega.nz

Released in January 2013, Mega was founded to serve as the successor to the Megaupload page. It is an improved and optimized version of it, which has become the most used data hosting service. It has one of the most armored security platforms and offers 20 GB storage for free. It offers one of the fastest upload and download speeds, making it a very viable alternative for sending data via email.

iCloud

It is the service of cloud computing native to Apple, it was launched in October 2011 and to date has approximately 400 million users. Among its functions, we have the ability to create and share links to files and folders in a similar way to Dropbox.

It has one of the best encrypted security systems on the market, a regular feature of Apple products. It also offers instant synchronization functions between devices, so you can access and share your files regardless of where you are.

ArqBackup.com

It is a cloud storage software designed to work on MacOS and Windows operating systems. It is especially useful for backing up your other hard drives to the cloud. It offers its users the possibility to share links to their files in a simple and direct way. Added to this, has open format encryption with password-based protectionin conjunction with one of the most stable and available platforms.