Transferring files using email starts off with no problem. You send a Word document to a client and he receives it right away. You send a PowerPoint file to a colleague and poof it's in his email. Suddenly one day, you send over a large file and you get a surprise wake-up call - a delivery failure notice a day or two later.

Sometimes when sending over larger files, you may even notice that your system hangs then sends a message saying "Sending Mail". Perhaps a more truthful message to blink would be "Trying to send Mail."

Why you can't transfer large files over e-mail

The problem is that even with broadband Internet, e-mail was not really designed to transfer enormous files. Most e-mail systems place limits on sending, receiving and storing large files. Large Word files that include images often exceed 10MB. That's as much space as many corporate e-mail applications provide in total for a user's mailbox. HotMail, Gmail and AOL all place limits on the size of the file that you can send (though sometimes these limits are pretty high.) There are, however, alternative ways to get large files from one place to another safely, securely, and usually fairly rapidly.

Option 1: Use FTP

If you have many large files that need to be distributed, an FTP site may be the answer. FTP (File Transfer Protocol) was developed with the HTTP (Hyper Text Transfer Protocol) specifically for file transfer, and can be configured to handle pretty much any size file, even very large ones.

To use FTP, you need two pieces of software. The first, an FTP server, is what is installed on the system that you will use to store the files, either for downloads to your clients and colleagues, or to receive large file uploads from them. Some inexpensive FTP servers that you might consider are: BulletProof Software's BPFTP Server for Windows and Serv-U from Rhinosoft.com. Another popular FTP server is Secure FTP from GlobalSCAPE.

The second piece of software, an FTP client, is used when uploading or downloading files to and from the FTP server. All of the above companies also offer FTP Clients as does iniCom Networks which developed the popular FlashFXP FTP client.

Option 2: Use an Intermediary service

Another way to handle the transfer of huge files is to use an intermediary service. This is a vendor which operates somewhat like an FTP server. For example, YouSendIt provides free accounting with a 100MB per file and 1 GB per month limit. When you upload the file, you specify the e-mail of the person who is to receive it, and they are sent an email from YouSendIt with instructions on how the recipient can download the file. For heavier-duty use, the company offers a variety of paid accounts with higher file limits and more features. LeapFILE , offers similar services, starting at about $15 a month.

Regardless of which approach you take, setting up your own FTP server or engaging a service, you'll find that being able to transfer large files almost effortlessly is both a load off of your mind and off of your e-mail account.

Any views or comments expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of Rick Telberg and Bay Street Group LLC and not necessarily those of any other organization. No person quoted or cited has any known connection to or interest in Hewlett Packard, and their appearance here should not be construed as an endorsement.