You've waited a patient 45 minutes, and the pop-up on your screen still says "sorry, we couldn't attach the file" or "your file is too large."
That's a depressing notification, especially for video creators, editors, and marketers. It wastes time and messes with your expectations.
We put together this guide to put an end to that struggle: six trusted, current ways to send large video files online, plus the actual size limits you're working around. Let's dive in.
Tired of fighting upload limits just to get footage to your editor?
editvideo.io sets you up with your own storage portal and a simple upload process, so sending raw footage is never the bottleneck.
Book a CallTable of Contents
Limits on Video Sharing
There are two ways to share video online: publicly and privately. Sharing publicly means uploading a finished, edited video to YouTube, Instagram, or another social channel through its normal upload flow, and each platform has its own rules on video length once it's live.
This guide is about private sharing, the kind you do when sending large, raw footage to a colleague, a client, or a video editor. That usually happens one of two ways: email or social media/messaging apps.
Email attachment limits
Most email providers cap attachments well below what a raw video file actually weighs:
| Email Platform | Maximum Attachment Size |
|---|---|
| Gmail | 25 MB |
| Yahoo Mail | 25 MB |
| Outlook / Outlook.com | 20 MB |
| Zoho Mail (free) | 20 MB |
| iCloud Mail | 20 MB |
Social media and messaging limits
Instagram, Facebook Messenger, X (formerly Twitter), and LinkedIn all cap the video you can send in a direct message too, whether by file size or by length. These limits change often and aren't always officially published, so it's worth checking each platform's current help center before you rely on a specific number. As a rule of thumb, DM video sharing is built for short clips, not raw footage, which is exactly why the methods further down this page exist.
What Determines Video File Size
A handful of factors decide how large a video file ends up being:
Dimensions (height x width): larger frames mean larger files.
Color depth: 16 bits per color takes up less space than 64 bits per color.
Frame rate: a higher frame rate means smoother video and a larger file.
Keyframe interval: fewer keyframes generally shrinks file size.
Duration: total length of the video, down to the second.
Quality: every factor above, plus audio, combined.
You don't have to calculate any of this by hand. Right-click the video file on your computer and check "details" or "properties" to see its exact size.
Videos under 25 MB or under a minute long can come from either a phone or a professional camera. The equipment doesn't determine file size on its own, and while professional footage is often larger, that's not a hard rule.
Six Ways to Send Large Video Files
If you're a content creator worried about getting large video files to your editor, that's a sign you've got the wrong editor. At editvideo.io, every client gets generous, secure cloud storage, a simple step-by-step upload guide, and a project management tool built in, all included.
If that's not your situation, here are six mediums that make sharing large video files online genuinely easy.
1. Google Drive
Google Drive is one of the most widely used cloud storage tools, and it comes with 15 GB of free space for photos, videos, documents, and anything else.
To share a large video file through Google Drive:
Log in to your Google account and go to Google Drive.
Create a new folder and name it.
Open the folder, right-click, and choose "upload."
Locate the video file on your computer and select it.
On a slow connection, a large upload can take a while, sometimes an hour for a 10-minute video, so give it time.
Once it's uploaded, click "Share," add the recipient's email, or copy the link and send it however you like.
If you create video professionally or upload often, 15 GB fills up fast. At that point you can either clear out old files or subscribe to Google One, whose Basic plan gets you 100 GB for around $1.99 a month.
The proxy hack with Google Drive
Want to move video files well over 50 GB on a free Google account? There's a workaround, and here's how to do it in Adobe Premiere Pro:
Organize your raw footage in a project file with clear names.
Select the footage you want to share.
Right-click and choose "Create Proxies." Premiere will start encoding smaller proxy files.
Upload the finished proxies to a Google Drive folder, along with any instructions and audio files.
Share the folder with your editor.
Reconnect the edited files with the originals, and you'll get the edit back in full original resolution.
Note: tell your editor to click "Offline All" when accessing the proxy files. If they reconnect the videos too early, Premiere will treat the proxies as the originals and cause problems.
This is really about shrinking what you upload. It's a good option for slow connections or older computers, and for footage that would otherwise take forever to upload at full resolution across borders. Sharing as proxy files can turn a multi-day upload into an overnight one.
2. Dropbox
Like Google Drive, Dropbox is a cloud storage service you can use for free, with folders and subfolders to keep everything organized. The free tier currently gives you 2 GB of storage, enough for a handful of short clips rather than a full raw-footage library.
To get more room, Dropbox Plus starts at $11.99 a month (less if billed annually) for 2 TB of storage. The upload process works the same way as Google Drive.
3. OneDrive
OneDrive is Microsoft's cloud storage service. If you have a Microsoft account, you already have a OneDrive account, and it works much like Google Drive or Dropbox. The free tier gives you 5 GB of space.
Beyond that, Microsoft 365 Basic gets you 100 GB of storage for about $1.99 a month, which is currently the cheapest paid entry point among the major cloud providers.
4. WeTransfer
WeTransfer is one of the simplest video-sharing tools around. You can send up to 3 GB per transfer for free, with no account required.
Upload your file to the WeTransfer website, get a shareable link within seconds, and send it to the recipient. Free links currently expire after 3 days, so your recipient needs to download it in that window or you'll need to send a new link.
Paid plans raise the ceiling considerably. The Starter plan runs about $8 a month for 300 GB of transfers, and the Ultimate plan (around $23 a month) allows unlimited transfers up to 1 TB each with no link expiry.
5. Jumpshare
Jumpshare is a cloud storage tool built around drag-and-drop sharing. Drop a large file onto your portal, and Jumpshare generates a unique, encrypted link you can send by email.
Beyond being secure, it's also flexible: Jumpshare supports about 200 file formats, lets you make minor edits and leave feedback, and shows you who's viewed your videos. The free plan gives you 2 GB of storage, with paid plans starting around $15 a month for 2 TB.
6. A Dedicated Video Editing Service
If you're sending large footage on a recurring basis, general-purpose file sharing tools eventually become a chore of their own. A subscription video editing service that's built around receiving and organizing raw footage skips that hassle entirely.
About editvideo.io
At editvideo.io, we cut this hassle out entirely. You won't need to hunt down the right cloud storage tool or figure out how to send large video files on your own.
Once you subscribe to any of our plans, we set you up with your own storage portal and a step-by-step guide for uploading your raw footage, backed by 24/7 customer support. If you'd rather see how we compare with other video editing services to outsource before deciding, that's a good place to start, and our guide on when to hire a YouTube video editor is worth a look too.
Your raw and edited videos stay fully encrypted and private, accessible only to you and your dedicated editor, any time you need them.
Once the footage is out of the way, the real payoff is what you do with the finished video. These business video marketing examples are a good next stop, and you can see current plans on our pricing page.
Frequently Asked Questions
What's the fastest free way to send a large video online?
Upload the video to a cloud storage service and send the link, rather than trying to attach it directly. WeTransfer is the quickest option for a one-off send since it needs no account, while Google Drive, Dropbox, and OneDrive work well if you're sharing regularly.
Does compressing a video hurt its quality?
It depends on the tool and settings you use. A moderate compression pass with the right codec can shrink a file significantly with barely any visible quality loss, while heavy compression will show up as blur or artifacts, especially in motion and dark scenes.
How can I share large video files on social media?
Most platforms cap video size or length in direct messages, and those caps change often. If a file is too large to send as a DM, upload it to a cloud storage service instead and share the link, or break the video into shorter clips.
How do I know my video is safe with a video editor?
There's no way to guarantee it from the outside, which is exactly why it's worth scrutinizing a video editor before trusting them with your footage. Check what past clients say about them and what they actually promise about data security, not just their pricing.
Stop wrestling with upload limits
Get your own storage portal and a dedicated editor with editvideo.io, so sending large footage is never the hard part.
Book a Call
