According to industry statistics, Gmail is the most popular email technology platform in countries around the world. With over 1.8 billion active users worldwide, about 27% of emails are opened in a Gmail inbox.
One of the basic features of Gmail is the ability to send files and folders as attachments. However, there’s a lot more to using Gmail’s attachment dialog than just clicking the paperclip icon and hitting send.
For example:
- What size file/folder can you send?
- What size file can the person you send to send an email? receive?
- What if the file is too big?
- What kind of files can you attach?
In this article, we will answer those questions and more as we describe the process of sending Zip files in Gmail and how a solution like WinZip® Enterprise can help you avoid issues like attachment size limits or attachment blocking.
Why you might need to send compressed files through Gmail
Gmail has a 25MB (megabyte) file limit for attachments. This means that no attachment can be more than 25 MB in size, and if you have multiple attachments, they can’t exceed the 25 MB limit.
Most audio and video files, as well as Large PDF documents may be too large to attach to a message sent through Gmail. To further complicate matters, attachments are encrypted, which also increases the file size slightly.
Attachments larger than 25MB are automatically stored in Google Drive and your email will contain a embedded link to the file location on Google. Drive. However, this option can present problems for the recipient, such as admin-level restrictions on who can share and access which files.
Zipping a file can reduce the size of the attachment, so Gmail doesn’t send it to Google Drive so the recipient has to search for it. You also don’t have to bother adding recipients to your Google Drive folder to ensure they have the proper permissions to retrieve and open it. Your Gmail recipient can quickly and securely download your Zip files directly from their email.
The Zip compression format is used to reduce the overall file size without affecting the quality of the original data. A Zip file can contain one or more compressed files, transferring files faster and reducing storage space requirements.
On average, 28% of work time is spent on email. Most working professionals send a minimum of 40 emails a day. Every time the sender or recipient must leave their email platform to handle a file/attachment, productivity is further reduced.
That loss of productivity becomes even more evident when you multiply it by the number of employees in a company. (For example, 1,000 employees equals 40,000 emails per day.)
What is a ZIP file and how does compression work?
Zip is an archive format that makes it easier and faster to send (and store) large files or groups of files when compressing them. As such, the process of compressing and storing a collection of data types in a single file creates an archive file.
Zip files are reliable, convenient, and a truly unique file type because they can be composed of of hundreds of different types of file extensions. They are not limited to any type of data and each file is compressed individually.
There are two ways to compress files: lossy and lossless. Zip files are lossless. That means that when you compress them and then decompress them, there is no degradation of the data. The data is restored to the same state it was in when you originally compressed it.
How can a Zip file do that? Each byte of data in a file is not unique. In fact, much of it is redundant. Depending on the file type, algorithms can remove some of that redundancy. For example:
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Text files, text style database files, and images in BMP format can be compressed by 90% or more.
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Audio files such as MP3s can be compressed by 15-20% without affecting sound quality.
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Image files like JPEG files can be compressed by 20-25% without compromising photo quality or data integrity.
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Program files can be compressed by 50%.
Instead of many representations of the same part of data, you are left with only one. For example, lossless file compression is like taking this data string, AAABBBBBCC, and compressing its redundancies to this smaller data string, A3B5C2.
It’s the same data, but it’s been optimized to take up less space. The numbers correspond to the number of times the previous letter is repeated. This way, when you unzip (unzip/open/extract), your file has instructions on how to return it to its original state, without data loss. That’s why it’s called “lossless”.
By compressing email attachments into a Zip file, you can:
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Send more files/folders than contain a wide mix of file types.
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Avoid having to create and send multiple additional emails.
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Upload your files faster and provide a faster download for your email recipient, reducing the risk of server times out if the sender or receiver is low on bandwidth.
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Stop wasting time trying to find workarounds for recipients whose email platform attachment size limit is even less than Gmail’s 25MB .
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Save storage space (and therefore money) for you, your organization, and the recipient of your message.
How to Send Zip Files in Gmail
There are several ways to send Zip files through Gmail, including using solutions like WinZip Enterprise or your device’s embedded software. functionalities.
Method One: On a Windows PC
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On your PC, navigate to where the files you want to send are are located, such as your desktop, documents folder, or cloud storage.
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Select the file or files you want to compress, right-click Right-click, and select the “Compress to Zip File” option from the menu that appears. This will generate a Zip file in the same location as the chosen documents.
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Change the name of the Zip file, if necessary, and then navigate to your Gmail account. account.
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Click the “Compose” button to create a new email.
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Enter the recipient’s email address, a subject line, and any content you want to include in the email.</p
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Click the paperclip icon in the bottom menu ribbon of your email, and then navigate to the location of the Zip file on your PC.
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Double-click the Zip file name to attach it to your email.
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Click “Send” to transmit the Zip file as a standard email attachment.
Method Two: Within the WinZip Enterprise platform
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Open WinZip Enterprise.
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Browse and select the files and/or folders you want to compress. These files can be stored on your PC, network, or in the cloud depending on your storage options and available solutions.
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In the Files panel, click Click the Add to Zip button.
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In the Actions panel, click Save As.
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Choose the destination location for your file, give it a name, and click Save.
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Compose the email message in Gmail. Then click the paperclip icon and select Attach Files.
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Navigate to the destination file location and select the Zip file.
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Repeat the Attach Files process, if necessary, to add more files.
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Send the Zip file as a normal attachment.
How WinZip Enterprise Improves and Simplifies Sending ZIP Files
Although you can always compress and send files directly to Through the folder window, WinZip Enterprise enhances data security through file-level encryption and password protection. This process is essential when sharing sensitive data, such as internal resources, confidential information, and any data subject to legal and regulatory requirements.
WinZip Enterprise also helps businesses avoid file lock issues when sending emails with attachments. Gmail blocks messages that can spread viruses, especially messages that include executable files, certain links, or certain file extensions.
If you see “This message was blocked because its content poses a potential security issue,” your attachment probably contains a prohibited file type. Formats blocked in Gmail include (but are not limited to) the following:
- .ade
- .appx
- .cmd
- .dmg
- .exe
- .iso
- .msp
- .nsh
- .rar
- .sys
- .vbs
- .wsc
Even if you have taken steps to compress files into a Zip archive, Gmail will block the attached file if it detects a prohibited file format within the compressed file. WinZip Enterprise gives you options to navigate file blocking, such as setting file extension options using WinZip Courier. To do this, you can modify the attachment options and use client file extensions, such as changing a .zip file to .zea for “compressed email attachment”.
Now that you understand how to create and send Zip files through Gmail, and how solutions like WinZip Enterprise can simplify that process, it’s time to experience it for yourself.
Learn how to use WinZip Enterprise to send ZIP files in Gmail quickly and easily.
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