Ending the Attachment

Email attachments are a great way of sending files. Unfortunately, a growing problem is that the recipient of your email never receives the attachment.

The most common reason for losing attachments is file size limits, which are often around 10MB. Corporate mail servers might also strip attachments because of worries about viruses and security.

There’s a better way to make sure your attachments are received – using Google Docs and Syncdocs you can send files up to 10,000 MB in size. You do this simply by sharing the files with recipients.

Also, if you update the file, you don’t need to re-send the email, it is automatically updated for everyone. What’s more, you have full control over who can do what with your shared files.

Here’s how

Install Syncdocs as described here. Right click on the file (or folder) you want to share. Then select “Share in Google Docs”.

Then select who you want to share it with. You can share it to people on your contacts list, or to the whole Internet. You can also give others the right to edit or comment on your file.

Finally you get the link to the file online. You can copy and paste it into your own email, or use one of the buttons to share it by Gmail, Facebook, Twitter or Google+ circles.

Better than attachments

The problem with attachments is if you send to a group, everyone views and edits their own copy. Once they all send these back to you, you’ll need to collate copies. However, if you share using Google Docs, everyone works on the same version. You can see others’ comments, include their revisions and see a full version history.

Email also can’t be undone. Once you send an email it is gone – even if you suddenly realize you shouldn’t have sent it. With shared files you can simply revoke access and no harm is done. You can also prevent users from downloading their own copy so they have to work online.

You can view and edit files online without downloading. This keeps you safe from viruses that can lurk in attachments. Google Docs can even be used to edit Microsoft Office files on iPhones and Android devices.

Google Docs with Syncdocs also makes collaboration easy.
Open this doc to give it a try yourself: http://goo.gl/pPkE1