Google lifts limit on attachments for Gmail users

Users can now receive emails up to 50MB in size

Photograph: iStock
Photograph: iStock

Noticed anything different about your Gmail today? If you are a frequent user of Google’s email service, you’ll know that while it has its good points - large storage, free to use (if you don’t mind the advertising - one point against it was the limit it placed on large attachments.

If you were sending or receiving emails with attachments through Gmail, you were limited to 25MB in size, which could cause problems if you were sending photographs, for example.

Until now. According to Google’s blog, the company has decided to raise the limit for incoming email to 50MB.

"Sending and receiving attachments is an important part of email exchanges," the blog post announcing the change said. "While Google Drive offers a convenient way to share files of any size, sometimes you need to receive large files as direct email attachments. So starting today, you will be able to receive emails of up to 50MB directly."

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The 25MB limit for sending files stays in place, but the workaround there is to use Google drive to deal with anything larger.

The new capability is being rolled out immediately, so expect to see the change in the next few days.

Ciara O'Brien

Ciara O'Brien

Ciara O'Brien is an Irish Times business and technology journalist