Outlook not sending large attachments

[#1]

I received an email from a hotmail account containing 10 2 to 3Mb sizing jpegs, when I went to forward the email on I got an error pop-up saying "Sending reported error; the operation timed out".

I've tried a couple of things like a opening a new email & attaching the jpegs in. I get the same error message again.

I eventually sent the jpegs after highlighting them in My Pictures & used the Send To button on a right click, this gave some options to reduce the size of the files, this I did & the message was sent OK.

My question is, why wouldn't Outlook send them full size, as I received them, either as a forwarded message or as a new message.

Thanks for any advice or answers

[#2]

depends on the file size limits in your account, years ago Hotmail only allowed you to send files up to 1mb in size unless you bought the premium package that allowed you to send up to 100mb file sizes, most "free" accounts still have similar sending limits or limit the size of individual attachments again unless you pay for the larger file size limits, they do this because of the data handling overheads to make sure everyone gets the same basic level of service, for instance one of the hidden extra's for buying the MSN premium package was your mail got hosted on a different server cluster that updated faster and had higher bnadwith options, since I stopped using it last year my mail has been migrated to another cluster and mail is slower to arrive,

most other mail providers offer similar things, however for instance apple don't limit the file size for mobile account users because they pay a monthly fee as part of their sim contract for the privilege, Google hide in their setings that your limited unless you have their open account (they get full access to everything you send /receive and archive it on their search engines) option ticked to give you the larger or unlimited attachment's (iirc unlimted size is a paid for premium service)

I don't know much about other providers but in my experience they have all offered similar packages, either they own the data and can use it as they wish or your paying for extra's to get the service you want (certainly BT used to charge extra before they joined with yahoo mail, not used a BT account since back then though)

[#3]

Plusnet allows me up to 50MB to send in in email, my message adds up to about 25MB in total.

The error message goes on to say that Outlook times out in connecting to the mail server, so I am a little bit baffled as to how to change that.

Apart from reducing the file sizes & sending in Outlook,  I'm going to try & send them full size via webmail

Thanks

[#4]

What version of Outlook are you using? Increasing the timeout value may help (the setting will be amongst the other settings related to server details).

[#5]

version 2003.

I delved into the timeout valve setting & it was set to 1 minute. Too short a time to send large files I think. I have increased the timeout to 7 minutes.

The maximum time to set is 10 minutes.

I used the outlook help to find where the timeout settings were hidden, thanks for the tip.

Bert

[#6]

Usual way round it would be to put the files on a "cloud" or web space or a FTP server etc & just email the link to the space.

Spider Oak lets me do this. I've got 7GBytes free...

[#7]

Yes, thanks for the tip. I will be more careful in future.

Outlook became more schizophrenic. I tried forwarding the hotmail message to myself with a couple of slightly smaller examples & these were sent. Trouble was the messages remained in my outbox & it would not let me delete them or open them. I went away for a cuppa, then tried a google search, I found, "open outlook with the shift key pressed". That allowed me to open them, then deleted the attachments, then cleared the outbox. What a performance.

I was wondering if there was a setting in Hotmail that would prevent Hotmail messages from being forwarded. I'll search for that.

Thanks for your advice

Bert

[#8]

@bertmay

to be honest I only use the webmail interface because the desktop clients are generally buggy in the past, also the pc doesn't download mail so there's zero danger of getting hit with a virus unless I download an attachment

[#9]

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@nanotm wrote:

there's zero danger of getting hit with a virus unless I download an attachment

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You get a virus by opening an attachment or, potentially, by clicking on an embedded link.  You cannot get a virus just by downloading an email unless you have very very old software that opens attachments automatically. 

[#10]

What do you mean by 'very very old'?

Have a browse through this list of CVE vulnerability data which illustrates the vareity of mechanisms by which an attacker could potentially execute arbitrary code or instigate other nefarious activity through just the downloading/display of specially crafted emails within various versions of Outlook, many of which I wouldn't categorise as 'very very old' on the basis of their continued prevalence.

We are way beyond the days of malware existing solely within standalone executables distributed as attachments.

[#11]

well I was told years ago that the only safe way to read mail was via the web interface because if its not downloaded onto the system it cant execute on the system, that's not to say you cant get infected via a malware script but most reputable mail companies scan the incoming stuff to ensure its not got browser .exe's in the page code so the problems get mitigated a lot compared to mail clients that download everything for you ....

[#12]

And I'd agree with that general sentiment. My post was in response to the comment that one cannot get a virus simply by downloading an email in a desktop client.

[#13]

Is this true?

What if it contains a HTML style email with links to embedded images - you've just told the spammer that a live person is reading their email.

[#14]

@nanotm - It doesn't need to be an executable these days, you can get RamsomWare delivered by and implemented using 100% JavaScript the very language that powers this (and millions of other) websites and it does not need you to download anything. And as @VileReynard has pointed out if you're using an HTML preview to read emails that displays remote images can prove to the sender that your account is valid.

So if this bothers you check your clients configuration to have them turned off.

[#15]

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@VileReynard wrote:

Is this true?

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Is what true?