Apples 'Mail' won't let me send attachments over 1mb??
 

'Mail' in OSX won't allow me to send attachments???

It isn't my service provider, I phoned them and they say I can send 100mb files if I like, also I have two service providers and they both do the same thing.

I'm only talking about a 2.8mb file attachment here, hardly that big by todays standards.

I have looked on the Apple site forums and they all say there are big problems with mail and attathcments.

It is definately an OSX/Mail problem, anyone know how to configure it so it works?

Using OSX.2.5

Hi,

Maybe your ISP is not the problem and maybe that Mail is not the problem! Maybe...you are not the person to blame. Maybe...that your repro house cannot receive files that are too big by email or maybe their mailbox is full...if it is the case, you can't do anything about it or at least talk about the problem with the repro house...

There is a lot of MAYBE....:confused:

You should post the error that you had when you sent the email... ;)

If you don't have any error messages that's (in most case) because the problem is not caused by your computer... :)

Personnally, I never had problem with file transfer via Mail.app...

Hope to read you soon!
--
Vincent

Try deleting the preference file for your mail program under User/Home/Library/Preferences I believe mail is an apple application so the file to delete should look like this:

com.apple.mail.plist

Also, you can try to make another user account and test it that way to troubleshoot preference problems.

Hope this helps.

I don't get it...
 

Hi tlarkin,

I don't understand why you suggest that...If Mail can't send email above 1mb it is not a preference but a limitation in the app...you can't control it over the preference. If it was the case...I suppose that we would be able to change that limit of 1mb to whatever we want somewhere in the application itself. A quick look in what's in the com.apple.mail.plist file didn't give me a reasonable hint that it could be the problem and there is nothing about the email size. Can you explain your suggestion? It will be very appreciated! Thanks

--
Vincent

I am 100% sure there is no limit (at least under 75mb) on Apple's Mail app. Tlarkin suggested this in case there was some sort of corruption that has occured in the preferences that was limiting you sending this file. As with all good hints for fixing a problem on a Mac the first palce to start is deleting the preferneces and trying again. You'd be surprised how many times this fixes the "problem".

Hi yellow...

I'm an old mac fan just like you since 1984...and I can 'understand' the deletion process of preference under old mac system but under OS X, I'm very impress that you thought about it in the first place even if I did it myself a couple of time. ;) I'll appreciate to hear what iMan have to say about the error that he got when he send email above the *supposed limit of 1mb*. Because just like you, yellow, I don't think Mail have a size limit.

Bye..
Vincent

If you look where I pointed the .plist, it was under the users directory, which in return would be a preference to that user. Applications have their own preferences under the /Library/Preferences folder, but so do users under /Users/Home/Preferences, I was simply suggesting perhaps its a preference pertaining to your user account. One way to test this is make a new user account. If the mail app works fine under the new user account, then it is safe to assume it was a user preference causing this to happen. It may not fix the problem, but just like Yellow mentioned if a preference is altered or gone corrupt in any way, it can affect that application's functions. That is what I would try first, then if that does not work try reinstalling the application itself. When you delete a .plist file and reboot the system and re-run the application, the program itself will create a new .plist file. I hope this expalins why I mentioned that. Keep us posted if it works or not, and I will try my best to help out further.

Good Luck!

hi,

Thank you tlarkin for the explanation I appreciated it a lot. I think it is safe and fast enough to give the deletion process a try (in ~/Library/Preferences only!) but I think it is not the right way to solve a problem. At least, it is not going to be my first move. Anyway, this is my point of view and you can have your own.

And obviously, in my last messages, I was talking about the user's preference com.apple.mail.plist file. I check the one in my computer and nothing in it would let me though that this file have something to do with the attachment size.

Finally, I'm just curious... do you have corrupted files often in your computer running under OS X?

It is the right way insofar as it's a common problem; i.e. pref files can become corrupt and can cause problems with an app, and removing the pref file takes all of a few seconds. If you're unhappy about deleting it simply drag it out of the preference folder, see whether Mail.app will now work as you expect, and put it back if it makes no difference (overwriting the newly created plist that was generated when you started Mail.app).

Hi djn1,

I'm not saying that I don't know how to do it... I'm saying that in this case and in most of them, it will not be MY first move because it's not happening to me. It seems that corrupted files are happening frequently on your computer...good for you if you solve your problems with that simple solution. Personnally, it never happened and I own three g4's computers. I think we need to analyze each problem separately and be very strict in the way we solve them. If you have the time to delete your preference and rebuild them after, good for you. In my case, I'll waste my time with something else!

All roads lead to Roma!

Vince,

Deleting a preference file takes a few seconds. just drag it to the trash, reboot and re run the app. If it does not fix the problem and you want the old pref file back just take it out of trash and pop it back in the folder, and overwrite the new one the app made. I work with mac's everyday, fixing them for my company, and it is my personal experience is that a lot of application problems can be fixed by replacing the .plist files. It may not fix this problem, it was simply a suggestion. It has fixed problems with IE on my G4 running os x 10.2.5, and other applications as well. If you are not comfortable with this troubleshooting method, or if you are not sure its a preference problem simply create a new user account. If the new user account works fine, then it can be safely assumed it was a prefernce problem. This method is even suggested by apple when troubleshooting weird sofware issues.

I'm with tlarkin on this one - it's a few seconds job, and if it doesn't work it hardly matters. However, given that you've obviously given this matter a lot of thought, I'd be interested to hear what you mean by "we need to analyze each problem separately and be very strict in the way we solve them" - I'm always interested in hearing other people's protocols for dealing with such matters.

Me too, I am curious what this could be. It may simply be an ISP problem as you mentioned above Vince. Like the person's mailbox is full or something to that extent. If you have another idea I am not grasping please let me know. I fix apple computers on a daily basis and the broader my knowledge is, the better I get my job done.

hi,

I'm happy to see how the conversation is going. It looks like we are all working with mac on a daily basis. I have seen so many troubles and some of them were amazingly frustrating. I think we all live it one day or another. I did what you suggest sometimes and it's funny because you did it with IE and me, I did it with MS Office a couple of times. I know that it is not a long process but trashing or putting away my preference files would not be my first move even if apple suggest it because some users have particular needs and taste about their applications. They like too customize the look and feel of apps because they just always worked with them that way. I'm managing a lot of mac at my office, around fifty different computers with different system. Some employees have laptops and others have desktops. Even if the 'preference hint' is working and fix the problem maybe it is caused by something else. And as I said before, each problem must be analyze separately and if I consider this preference hint to be the best, I'll do it without hesitation. But not in this case. Since iMan, is not giving us more information on the problem. I would have not put the blame on my computer at first glance. There is a lot of question to answer before we put the blame on Mail. Do you agree with that? We don't know what exactly happened when iMan has sent the email. Does Mail show an error, does he received a message from the mailer-daemon of its ISP or from the Mailer-deamon of its repro house? Those are the few questions that are coming to my mind. How does he know that the email was not succesfully delivered? Why did he put the blame on Mail? I invite iMan to give us some answers before we suggest something like what I call now the 'preference hint' ;)

I think now that the question that we should try to answer...is the one of iMan...since he didn't respond lately I assume that he found a work-around. Maybe he can tell us what he did!

Bye!

Another lost attachment...
 

This is interesting because I just recently sent an e-mail with an attachment aproximately 2.4 MB in size from Mail app (using .mac service) to my work e-mail. Now I manage the mail server at work and know for a fact that there is no limitation on the size of attachments that can be received. There are certain limitations on the type of file but I would receive notification if an illegal file type was received. In this circumstance that is not the case. So I never received the message or attachment (I did watch it upload from the Outbox so I am certain the problem is not Mail app). I checked with .mac service and they claim that attachments can be sent up to 3.5 MB in size. The mail vaporized somewhere and I can't figure out where or why....

Any ideas?

My 2 cents, as a Mac sysadmin for the past 8 years and working with OS X on ~200+ Macs since 10.1 was released, I will always start with the easiest solution when trying to figure out a problem with the app.
Naturally I go through the user info stroking phase to try and gleen as much information as possible, check to make sure that what I should see happening is happening.

Usually the next step is to to remove the preferences for that particular app. It takes less time to remove them and reset how you like the app to look/behave then to waste your time trying every other possible variable to fix it/figure it out when so often it comes right back to FUBAR'd prefs. I think this is where the acronym "KISS" (Keep It Simple, Stupid) is highly applicable.

BTW: iMan's original post about this was in another thread: http://forums.macosxhints.com/showth...threadid=11455

Only once have I seen a mail disappear with my .Mac account, and that was going the other direction. I mailed from work to my .Mac account and it never arrived. I don't know if the attachment was zapped because they thought it had a virus or what.

Hi,

I completely agree with you yellow and I do the same.

And unfortunately, I don't use the .mac services, so I can't help you wfleitz... sorry.

Have a nice weekend
Bye

even simpler is to quit the app and move the pref file out of its domain to a temporary location (effectively removing it from the equation, but saving it), test the results and if they are not favorable, quit the app and move the pref file back.

i realize this pref frobbing method is the "next step", but does it irk anyone else that this is the case? that these pref settings often have little integrity and can crater an app's behavior so frequently?

argh!

I think before I tried messing with the prefs or much else I would try sending the message (with attachment) to myself.

Then if I received it successfully that would eliminate a multitude of sins. If I got the message without the attachment I'd examine the headers pretty carefully to see if I can tell where it's getting stripped off.

Only if the above both proved fruitless or the message never left the outbox would I suspect the mail client.

That's a good idea, Craig. I'm with you with this one.

Re: Apples 'Mail' won't let me send attachments over 1mb??
 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by iMan
'Mail' in OSX won't allow me to send attachments???

This has happened to me and after checking the file to see if was corrupt and calling my provider to see if they knew why (they did not know) then I tried sending it to different destinations ... and it just stayed in my outbox resending everytime I stared the app. Then I noticed that when adding an address or two a comma appears after it and when I click down into the body to start typing it dissapeares ... so after typing my e-mail I click back into the TO: line and add a comma after the last address and then hit send ... and it goes. I thought it was just me but then I read this thread.. hope it works for you as well.