How to Share Large Files Online Without Hitting Size Limits
Most email providers cap attachments at around 25MB, and even file-sharing links can be slow or unreliable for very large files. Before reaching for a specialized transfer service, it's worth checking whether the file actually needs to be as large as it currently is — often, it doesn't.
Compress before you assume you need a bigger pipe
The fastest fix for a file that's too large to send is often just making the file smaller, not finding a way to send a larger file. A video that's too big for email can frequently be compressed down substantially with barely noticeable quality loss; a PDF full of high-resolution scanned images almost always has meaningful room to shrink. Checking this first can turn a file-sharing problem into a non-issue in a couple of minutes.
Bundle multiple files into one archive
If you're sending several separate files, zipping them together into one archive is both more convenient for the recipient (one download instead of several) and, for some file types, meaningfully smaller than the sum of the individual files, since compression can find efficiencies across a whole batch of files that it can't within a single already-compressed file.
Match compression aggressiveness to what the file is for
If the recipient just needs to view a video or read a document — not archive it at maximum fidelity — a more aggressive compression setting is entirely reasonable and often makes the difference between a file that sends easily and one that doesn't. Reserve lighter compression for files where the recipient genuinely needs the extra quality, like source material they'll edit further.
When compression genuinely isn't enough
For files that are large even after reasonable compression — a lengthy raw video export, a large dataset — a cloud storage link (rather than an email attachment) is generally the better approach, since it isn't constrained by attachment size limits the same way. But it's still worth compressing first even in that case; a smaller file uploads faster and downloads faster for the recipient, regardless of which method you use to share it.
Compress PDF and Compress Video both handle the most common oversized-file cases directly in your browser. For bundling multiple files before sending, Create Archive combines them into a single, more manageable file.