E-Mail is probably the most popular form of communication today. Many of us use it for work, school, and to keep in touch with friends and relatives. However, plain text may not always be enough. Many also use E-Mail to send attached files such as reports, documents, and as the old saying goes; "a picture is worth a thousand words". However, E-Mail attachments can cause some problems, if you are not aware of some of the server's restrictions.

Active Web Hosting's E-Mail server will allow you up to 5 MB of messages in your inbox on the server. This includes all E-Mail messages including any attachments. When you retrieve your E-mail from the server, it automatically will delete the messages from the server and you will have 5 MB free space again.

Whenever you attach a file, your E-Mail program (or the Web Mail interface) will automatically encode it to text format because E-Mail can only be sent as text. When the person you send the file to receives it, their E-Mail program will automatically decode it back to binary format so they can use or view the file. This encoding process on your end will make the file larger than it was when it was in binary format. Thus, while your 4.98 MB image may be under the 5 MB limit for the mail server, it will not be once the E-Mail program prepares it for sending. If this is the case, the message will be bounced or sent back to you with an error message saying that the file attachment was too large. For more information, please see Why is my attachment file size reported as too big?

In addition to file size, you also have to take into consideration the different file types that are allowed to be sent. To protect you and others from viruses, we do not allow certain file types to be transmitted. Our FAQ titled What files can I attach to E-Mail? lists the different files that you may not transmit in E-Mail. We do not exclude some of the more common and useful formats that you may need to transmit such as archived files, images and certain document types.

These rules also apply to E-Mail you may receive as well. In addition, it is your responsibility to always scan your file attachments for viruses before using them and never open an attachment unless you can fully trust the person who is sending it to you.

Be sure to check out our Frequently Asked Questions & Support page for answers to your questions, script and program tutorials, and more!