Mail Server Attachment

Roy Ng · 04-20-2006, 11:07 PM

Dear all,

Recently, I need to send a 3MB PDF file as attached in email. After that, the mailer return failure notice to me. And the file size of failure notice has been increased to 8MB. I would like to ask why the file size dramatically rise up.

Can the mail server be tuned up for accepting large size attachment? And what is the technicial problems for that case?

Our server is operated in Qmail.

Thank you for help!!!

Skie · 04-21-2006, 09:20 AM

When you attach a file to email, it is encoded in MIME format. This increases the size of the file. A 5MB increase seems a bit excessive to me however. I've never really paid attention to what the actual size increases are, so I can't say if this is normal.

As far as the size that each email can be, this is controled by the accepting email server. It should be able to control not only the size of each individual email, but also the size of the receiving mailbox (how much each mailbox can hold).

I would suggest looking through your qmail config file for any information regarding mail size. Also, look at the config for the receiving mailbox and see what the max size is set to.

04-20-2006, 11:07 PM	#1 (permalink)
Roy Ng Registered User Join Date: Nov 2005 Posts: 50 OS: Windows Family	Mail Server Attachment Dear all, Recently, I need to send a 3MB PDF file as attached in email. After that, the mailer return failure notice to me. And the file size of failure notice has been increased to 8MB. I would like to ask why the file size dramatically rise up. Can the mail server be tuned up for accepting large size attachment? And what is the technicial problems for that case? Our server is operated in Qmail. Thank you for help!!!

04-21-2006, 09:20 AM	#2 (permalink)
Skie Manager, Alternative Comp Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: Chicago burbs Posts: 2,194 OS: Gentoo Linux, CentOS, OS X My System	When you attach a file to email, it is encoded in MIME format. This increases the size of the file. A 5MB increase seems a bit excessive to me however. I've never really paid attention to what the actual size increases are, so I can't say if this is normal. As far as the size that each email can be, this is controled by the accepting email server. It should be able to control not only the size of each individual email, but also the size of the receiving mailbox (how much each mailbox can hold). I would suggest looking through your qmail config file for any information regarding mail size. Also, look at the config for the receiving mailbox and see what the max size is set to. __________________