Sending your friend a file they have requested by attaching it to an email is common. However, sending attachments to an email list is rarely a good idea. We advise against it, because:

  • The size of the file you send gets multiplied by the number of recipients. I.e., if you send a 10MB file to a list with 100 recipients, you've just created 1000MB of email traffic!
  • Recipients who don't want the file(s) can get annoyed and unsubscribe.
  • Delivery to the total list takes longer.
  • Some recipient servers will scan messages with attachments more harshly, thinking they may contain viruses. This in turn may result in your message going to the recipient's spam folder.

The alternative:

Upload the file to a file sharing service and send only the link to the file in your email. Anyone interested can click on that link and download the file. Those who are not interested are not bothered with downloading a huge file they don't want. We recommand Firefox Send.

Another way to share files is to install Dropbox on your computer. You simply drag and drop your file into the Dropbox Public folder on your computer, then copy the link provided and paste that into your email. For example, this is a link to a file in my Dropbox account.

You can download Dropbox from here.

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