How to email photos without hitting the attachment size limit
4 minutes, updated 2026-11-09
Ten photos from a modern phone are 30 to 60 MB. Gmail and most other mail services cap attachments at 20 to 25 MB, so the message is refused, turned into a cloud link, or bounces at the other end where the limit is lower.
The limit is smaller than it looks
Email carries attachments as text, using an encoding called Base64 that makes every file about a third larger on the way. A 25 MB limit therefore fits roughly 18 MB of actual photos, and the receiving server may have a lower limit than yours. Aiming for 10 MB in total keeps a message deliverable almost everywhere.
Shrink the batch
For photos that will be looked at on a screen, a long side of 2000 pixels at quality 80 is plenty: each photo drops to about 300 to 600 KB and still fills a laptop screen. In the compress tool, set the quality and a long-side limit of 2000, drop the whole set, and download them as one ZIP.
| Use | Long side | Quality | Typical size per photo |
|---|---|---|---|
| View on a phone | 1280 px | 80 | 150 to 300 KB |
| View on a laptop or TV | 2000 px | 80 | 300 to 600 KB |
| Print up to 15 × 10 cm | 1800 px | 90 | 600 KB to 1 MB |
| Print larger or archive | Original | Original | Send a cloud link instead |
When not to shrink
For printing large, editing, or keeping as the family archive, send the originals through a shared folder rather than email. Compression is for photos that will be seen, not for the master copy.
Good to know
- Re-encoding removes the GPS location and camera details from each file, which is usually what you want for photos sent outside the family.
- iPhone HEIC photos are converted to JPG by the compress tool's JPG option, so they open on any computer.
- A ZIP does not make photos smaller; it only bundles them. The saving comes from the resize and quality steps.