Need to send us a large file and it’s too big to email?

Here’s a few options that are availble:

  • If you have plenty of time before your deadline, you’re welcome to burn your files to CD or DVD and send them that way.
  • If you’re coming here in person (pre-arranged by appointment only), perhaps having your files on a USB portable disk or memory stick would work fine. We have even used a camera’s storage disk for this purpose to transfer files!
  • Maybe you need to break your attachment into smaller files to make them an emailable size — then just send us multiple messages (best to have 1 of 3, 2 of 3 etc in the subject line). We have had Word and PowerPoint files emailed to us in parts for us to re-construct into a single document at our end.
  • Usually you can email attachments up to around 7Mb* in size per message. It depends on the email system; some systems don’t allow that size message to be sent out from your account. If you can’t break down the message into smaller files, there are still a few options.
  • Use a free service such as www.yousendit.com to send your file. You can only send one file at a time, but up to 1Gb (1,000Mb) in size! Use a utility like WinZip to archive/compress your files into a single file before sending. This is quite a good option if you have a high-speed/cable/broadband internet connection.
  • We have an FTP facility available if required: contact us for the FTP details. Files can be uploaded (but not downloaded/deleted for security purposes).
  • You can post your large file on your own website for us to download. If you want to send us a file that is publicly downloadable (eg from a government website), then just send us a link.

* Even if you have a 10Mb allowance per outgoing message, you’ll find that because of the encoding that is “wrapped around” attached files when sent via email, you lose some of that 10Mb — up to 30% for some encoding options. So you’ll probably find with a 10mb limit that the physical size of the attachments cannot be much bigger than approximately 7Mb.

In reverse, we can use these methods to send files to you if required. Quite often, when we have a large file, we can “post” it to a non-public space on our website and give you a password to access the relevant page and download the file. We also have successfully used the YouSendIt service for sending large files.