Send up to 100MB attachments with Outlook and drop.io
A lot of business email servers only allow 5-10MB attachments, but today it’s not uncommon to need to send a much larger file to a friend or colleague. Thanks to drop.io and their new Outlook plug-in, you can now send up to 100MB attachments for free.
Drop.io offers a unique file-sharing and collaboration platform. With their Outlook plug-in, you can use this system to send larger files directly from Outlook. Drop.io is free for up to 100MB of storage; if you need to send larger files than that, you can upgrade to a professional account.
This plugin is still in beta and for this article, we ran the plug-in in Outlook 2010 64-bit version. We have tested it on Outlook 2007 as well and it works fine in both versions.
Let’s get started
First, download the Outlook plug-in and install it. The installer is very simple, and the setup only took a couple seconds. The installer will have to download the rest of the plugin, but even still it was very quick. Please exit Outlook before running the installer.
Once this is finished, open Outlook and click New Email to check it out. To attach your files, click the new “Attach Files with drop.io” button.
This will open an Explorer window. Add any files you want, and compose your message. Simply send as normal, and all of the files will be included in the email. There is no third step; it’s as simple as sending attachments with a normal email.
Here’s how the email looks when the recipient receives it. It shows the files I attached, and has a download link for each one. It also has a download link for all the files, so the recipient can quickly get all the files we sent.
The download link takes them to a page where they can either just view the file online or download it.
Drop.io also allows offers free conference calls through their platform. You can add a conference call number to your email so you and your colleagues can talk about your project. Simply click the “Conference Call” button to add a unique conference call number to your email.
Here we take a look at it in Outlook 2007…
![sshot-2010-03-01-[21-15-51]](http://www.howtogeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/sshot20100301211551.png "sshot-2010-03-01-[21-15-51]")
Other features include:
- Adding Special User Permissions
- Use SSL and a Guest Password
- Customize design colors, backgrounds, logos … and more
Summary
The Drop.io plugin gives you an easy way to send larger files directly from Outlook, and then helps you collaborate on them. This can be very helpful in situations where you need to send large attachments. Even though it’s still in beta stage, everything worked very slick in our testing.
Link:
Can this be installed on a server?
A lot of business network admins block such sites as drop.io.
Oh, isn’t this just special. Now you can send these huge attachments to… Well, no one.
Who do I know that uses Drop.io? Um, if I count them using one hand, oddly enough, I have five fingers left over. So, first I need to convince the intended recipient of this attachment to open an account with Drop.io that will just fit this 100MB attachment into it…, And surely, my intended is gonna use this new account really, really often…
I think I’ll continue using Media fire, RapidShare, etc.
But it was a good read.
@1fastbullet Actually, you don’t have to have an account with Drop.io to use it. That’s what’s great! Give it a try, and you might like it. Or of course, if you have something else that works better for you, by all means use it. We just found the drop.io tool to be incredibly useful!
When I try and send a file (6mb 7zip file) I get this error:
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All attachments must be sent either through drop.io or Outlook
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OK
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It all seems to be installed ok, but I get this error everytime (outlook 2007, exchange 2003)
I’m a big fan of Drop.io and this plugin Outlook is so cool!
me too!!!
When I try and any file I get this error:
—————————
All attachments must be sent either through drop.io or Outlook
It all seems to be installed ok, but I get this error everytime (outlook 2007, exchange 2003)
Hi
I found this plugin VERY VERY useful! I frequently have to send big files and find it very irritating trying to explain to clients how to open a mediafire account. So this means that I can just send them the file and they just have to click and can download it easy peasy!!
I LOVE IT….Thank you so much, i find this website extremely useful and have referred quite a few friends to it.