Email Etiquette. A topic that most folks really don't think about, but in business, it's IMPORTANT! Why? What is email etiquette anyway? Well, overall, it's a keen sense of understanding how email works. Or a basic overview will work too. Did you know when you email a 10 megabyte file, that the email puts a "wrapper" of sorts around the attachment. This wrapper can make the email up to 40% bigger in some cases. Depending on the file type, if it's compressed or not.
So 10 Megs becomes 14 megs, big deal? Well, yeah, kinda. See, email servers were never designed to move large files. I know you want to pop that 15 gigabyte movie file into an email (hey it can be done!) and send it off. The mail server should completely reject that idea. But some mail servers are not configured to do that. It may actually take the file and attempt to send it to the final destination. That mail server will churn and churn on what now is over a 20 gig file with the email wrapper. This makes the mail server work harder, BLOCKS the mail processing thread to just only work on that file sending. While most mail servers are multi threading, a super large file takes over the processor and generally bogs down the speed of everything. In addition, the client that receives the file might not be on a high speed connection, so they have to wait for their mail client to drag it down. Essentially, copying the file again TO THE 3rd location. This again, takes way too much time through email.
So knowing your file size is important! Don't email anything over 5 megs generally. And there is MANY FREE services online, that don't require anything but an email to send your 15 gigabyte file or even a 200 gigabyte file. This by far is recommended if you do not have your own server or access point on the www, where you could allow a download. Ever wonder how a 10 gig video file plays so nicely on your phone that isn't on wifi? Because the movie is cut into tiny little bits and sent in a way that visually appears to "stream" the video. And indeed, the video service, YouTube, Vimeo or others, reduces and compresses that file significantly before it allows playable content.
Email Etiquette is to show your receiver that you know how to handle digital files that doesn't cause aggravation, long waits and frustration to the receiver. While PDFs are a great cross platform tool, they too can become massive files. Recently a client brought us a 40 meg Media Kit PDF that had 2 pages. They had issues with their clients receiving it through email. Webix reduced the PDF to about 1 megabyte with SAME HIGH QUALITY images and content. Needless to say, they were significantly relieved when they could distribute the PDF properly.
Contact us today for your email solutions!