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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