Imagine that I put a big, beautiful brick in your mailbox.

The next day, you receive 20 more beautiful bricks…

Suddenly, there’s no room left in your mailbox.

I’m talking metaphorically about email attachments.

Every week, people send me large WAVs & PDFs.

“Will you listen to my music, read my book, etc?”

Some sign up for my newsletter to get my email address to pitch me.

But I don’t read them.

I’ve declared war on email attachments.

Will you join my cause?

Sending bulky attachments without permission can be impolite and overbearing.

Consider the carbon footprint (~50g of CO2 or ~1,500g of CO2 per worker every day). Check this math.

Attachments may contain malicious code embedded them.

Are you sending your recipient a Trojan Horse?

When you send an attachment (no matter the size)  to someone, you’re using up space in their inbox.

Space they probably have to pay for.

So you’re costing them….

Here’s what to do instead

Send links.

Upload your files to Dropbox, Google Drive, Box, iCloud.

Share these links with your recipients.

Make sure that you’ve enabled permissions to avoid the “Hey, I can’t access this” emails from your recipients.

If you’re sending music, try SoundCloud, YouTube, Disco.

If you’re sending photos, try iCloud, Google Photos, etc.

I don’t love WeTransfer because the recipient still has to download instead of stream files. But it’s better than sending a large email attachment.

One other benefit…

You can update the version of the file and keep the same link.

This avoids sending another email to your recipient:

“Oops, I sent you the wrong version.”

Yes, it takes more time to send links. 

But it’s more courteous.

And you won’t inadvertently annoy your recipients.