large attachments

[Cindy]

When someone sends me an attachment over the FutureQuest file size limit (which is either 2MB according to Quest Mail, 4, 5, 10, or 11MB on other sources so I'm not quite sure of the exact limit), neither the sender or I receive any notification of this undelivered mail. Occasionally I've found out months after the fact that there was a file I didn't receive. If I don't know in advance someone's sending me something, I can't tell them to use my Road Runner or AOL addresses instead, (which evidently don't have file size limits or else they're incredibly high).

Are there FQ logs anywhere for my site I can check on a regular basis for these bounced mails?
Cindy

[Terra]

Cindy:

The true size limit for a raw email message is: 15,000,000 bytes...

Anything above that size _will_ be bounced back to the sender with an error message...

When I speak of raw size, that means that when someone sends you a 1Mb image, it must be converted into a mail safe format... Think of uuencoding a 1Mb image, where the resultant increase in size would be 30%...

A general rule of thumb, is that if someone sends you a binary file, the true size of the file may have been 11Mb, but the *raw* size would be 16Mb due to the binary ==> ASCII encoding...

There is no current way to notify you that you were to receive an email that was oversized... It either makes it to you, or it gets bounced back - (as it should)...

Now as far as the sender not receiving the bounce, that can be for multiple reasons:
1) Their Return-Path is not valid... (happens *a lot* actually)
2) Where they sent it from has no restriction on size of outbound email (or is extremely high), however they have limits on the inbound email... What their email system does with the email from there is up to them...
3) They have spam filters, that either chokes on testing the email or it ships it off to a blackhole of sorts...
4) <Insert One Million other reasons here>

If you need to receive large files that their raw size is over 10Mb, then it is best to use the FTP protocol, which is designed for just that reason... Large emails are HARD on spam filters, because they email must be completely read into memory first, and then scanned...

--
Terra
--feasibility--
FutureQuest

<EDIT: The limit was raised to 14.30Mb>

[Arthur]

2MB according to Quest Mail

Some clarification on that number; in QuestMail all attachments have to be uploaded to the server using HTTP. That upload is limited to 2 MB, ergo the attachments are limited to 2 MB.

Arthur

[Binky]

I didn't realize there was such a size limit to sending attachments using Questmail. Twice now I've tried sending jpegs of about 2 Mb. The problem is that the email appears to be sent but in fact is not and I get no message informing me. I just assume it went.

[Arthur]

We have made some tweaks and you will now receive an error in most cases, when the attachment is too large.
The error is "Could not move/copy file. File not attached" (before someone asks - this cannot be changed, because dozens of translations depend on it).

Also, please note; currently, the size limit for QuestMail attachments is 1 MB. The limit for emails sent using SMTP remains the same.

Arthur