How to Email Large Photos (Without Hitting Attachment Limits)
2026-06-08
You attach a few photos, hit send, and the email bounces back: "attachment too large." Most providers cap attachments at around 20–25 MB, and a handful of modern phone photos can blow past that easily. The fix is simple — shrink the images before attaching — and the recipient won't notice any difference on screen.
Why phone photos are so big
Modern phone cameras shoot at very high resolution — often 12 megapixels or more — producing files of several megabytes each. That detail is useful for printing, but completely wasted when the recipient just views the photo on a screen. Reducing the file size keeps everything that matters for on-screen viewing while cutting the bulk.
Two ways to shrink for email
The quickest path is to compress the photos — at quality 70–80 a multi-megabyte image often drops to a few hundred KB with no visible loss. If you have many photos, that easily brings a whole batch under the limit. For a hard ceiling, use a target-size tool like compress to 200 KB. You can also resize down first if the originals are enormous.
Sending documents instead?
If the photos are actually documents — receipts, forms, contracts — combine them into a single PDF instead of attaching many separate images. One tidy PDF is smaller, easier for the recipient, and looks more professional. All of this happens in your browser, so even sensitive documents are never uploaded anywhere.