Use Mail Drop for large files
With the standard Mail app, you can send attachments of up to 5GB to others, even if it doesn’t fit in the recipient’s mailbox. You use Mail Drop, a special Apple function for exchanging large files. Mail Drop ensures that the email attachment ends up in iCloud. In fact, you do not actually send an attachment, but a link with which the recipient can download the file themselves. If the recipient has an iPhone, iPad or Mac, they will see almost no difference with a normal attachment.
- Explanation
- iPhone and iPad
- Mac
This is how Mail Drop works for sending large files
With Mail Drop it is possible to send attachments up to 5GB, regardless of which email provider you use. That is much higher than what you can normally send. If you send the attachment via Mail Drop, the recipient has thirty days to open the attachment from iCloud.
Mail Drop is similar to WeTransfer, which also allows you to send large files to someone else. The difference is that with Apple’s feature you have much less hassle. Everything happens automatically as soon as you have placed a large attachment in an e-mail message. Moreover, with WeTransfer you can send up to 2GB for free, so 3GB less.
If you regularly send large attachments by email, Mail Drop is the solution. The recipient only receives a link to the file via email and can decide for himself when to download the email attachment. The attachments are temporarily ‘parked’ on iCloud, where they remain for 30 days. If the recipient uses the Mail app of macOS or iOS, he will receive the attachment in the normal way. If not, he will receive a link to download the file.
A total of 1TB of Mail Drop attachments can be stored per iCloud account. If this storage space is full, you can no longer send new attachments this way. You must therefore wait until it has been more than thirty days since the oldest attachment was sent so that it is automatically deleted. A disadvantage of Mail Drop is that you cannot view an overview of which attachments are stored in iCloud.
Use Mail Drop on an iPhone or iPad
To use Mail Drop it is not necessary to adjust any settings. The standard Mail app on the iPhone and iPad automatically recognizes large files, so you receive a notification as soon as you want to send a large file. With such a large attachment you have two choices: send the attachment via this iCloud function or try to send the attachment in a normal way.
As a recipient, you can download the file using the small notification at the top of the email. If the recipient is using an app other than Apple’s Mail app, a link will be shown to download the file. In our separate tip you can read how to send an email attachment on an iPhone or iPad.
Use Mail Drop on Mac
On the Mac you do have to adjust something in your settings if you want to use Mail Drop. That only needs to be done once. Follow these steps:
- Open the Mail app on your Mac.
- In the top menu bar, click on Mail > Settings.
- Open the Accounts tab and select the relevant account in the left column.
- Check the Send large attachments with Mail Drop option.
- Repeat steps 3 and 4 for other accounts if necessary.
You can now attach up to 5GB of files to your emails sent from the Mail app. On the Mac you are not asked whether you want to use Mail Drop. The Mail app takes care of that itself. So you do get that choice on the iPhone and iPad.
You can also use external services such as WeTransfer to send large files. We explain it in the article below.
https://www.iculture.nl/tips/grote-files-verhouden-vanaf-iphone-of-ipad/
