Gmail Attachment Size Limit

The limit, and the catch

1. 1Personal Gmail accounts cap the total attachment size of one message at 25 MB. It is the total across all attachments, not per file.
2. 2Attachments are encoded for transmission, which adds roughly a third to their size. A file that reads as 20 MB in Finder or Explorer can therefore exceed the cap in transit, which is why files well under 25 MB sometimes fail.
3. 3Go over the limit and Gmail handles it for you: it removes the attachment and inserts a Google Drive link to the file instead. The recipient clicks through rather than downloading from the message.
4. 4Check the sharing on that Drive link before sending. If the file is not shared with the recipient, they get a request-access screen rather than the file.
5. 5Google Workspace accounts are different. Administrators set their own sending and receiving limits, so a work account may allow less than 25 MB — or the receiving server at the other end may.
6. 6Some file types cannot be attached at all regardless of size. Gmail blocks executables such as .exe to stop malware spreading; zipping one does not get around it. Put it in Drive instead.
7. 7To find what is eating your storage rather than your send limit, search has:attachment larger:10M.

The problem

• ✕The number in the error message and the number on your disk are not the same number
• ✕The recipient's server has its own limit, which you cannot see
• ✕A Drive link with the wrong sharing setting fails silently from your side
• ✕Large threads with attachments keep consuming storage long after the exchange is over