Incoming/outgoing mail limits

Mail servers have set limits to ensure that no one mail account chokes them. They limit three items: the size of an incoming email, the size of an outgoing email and the amount of data that a user can store in his/her mailbox. If you have ever received an email back with the message "mailbox is full" then the person you were sending to has too many emails left on the mail server.

Generally, the largest file you can email to a user is 10 Mb. This will easily cover most image files. However if you have a few images to send then you may need to send multiple emails. If you work on only sending emails no longer than 7.5 Mb then you are pretty safe. The same limit will usually apply to your outgoing mail, whereas the mail server you use may simply refuse to send an email over 10 Mb.

But regardless of the size a user can accept the limit of the mailbox may impede you. Most users only have around 15 Mb of space in their mailbox, which may only be enough for two large emails. To get around this you need to ensure that the person you are sending to is constantly clearing their email so as to clean out the mailbox before you choke it. For example, if you have 20 Mb of data to send it would be a good idea to confirm with the recipient that you are about to send the emails through and that they are clearing their mail every few minutes. This way you could send 3 or 4 emails and have each one removed from the mail server before the next one is sent.

There are exceptions to this, such as a paid for hotmail account that may be able to receive much larger files and store a large amount or mail data.

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