Send large video files

What SendTheStuff will do with a large video

SendTheStuff will turn the video into a link, so no app's attachment cap comes into it.

• The whole video, untouched. SendTheStuff will send the file you recorded, with nothing compressed, trimmed or converted.
• Long recordings too. SendTheStuff will take up to 5 GB per transfer, free. In the table above, that's minutes of 4K rather than seconds, and over an hour of 1080p.
• From whatever filmed it. SendTheStuff will run in the browser on an iPhone, an Android phone, a Mac or a Windows PC.
• To anyone. SendTheStuff will give you Copy, Email, Messages and Share buttons, so the link can go out by text, email or any chat app.
• Gone when it's done. SendTheStuff will keep the link working for 14 days, then delete the video, so it won't sit in anyone's storage.

Why video files get so big

A video is a long run of still pictures, dozens of them every second. Every one of those frames has to be stored, so length, resolution and frame rate all multiply together.

• Resolution. A 4K frame has four times the pixels of a 1080p frame. More pixels need more data, even after compression.
• Frame rate. Going by YouTube's recommended bitrates, filming at 60 frames a second instead of 30 adds about half again to each second.
• Format. Phones save video in a compressed format such as HEVC or H.264. Editing formats keep far more: Apple says ProRes files from an iPhone are up to 30 times larger than HEVC files.
• Length. All of that is per second. A 20-minute recital is twenty times the size of the same camera's one-minute clip.

So the size isn't a sign that anything went wrong. A sharp, smooth, long video is simply a lot of data, and the table above shows how much per minute.

Where each usual route stops

Email is everyone's first try, but chat apps and texts have their own limits. Most either refuse a large video or quietly make it smaller.

Each of these has its own guide. For texts, see sending long videos by text. For email, see emailing a video that's too big to attach.

Cloud drives get around every limit above, but they bring their own catches. A Google Drive link needs its sharing set to "Anyone with the link", or people get asked to sign in. Drive also plays video back at 1920 x 1080 at most, whatever you uploaded. And every video you share that way stays in your 15 GB of Google storage until you delete it.

Shrinking the video against sending it whole

The table above has a second half for a reason. Shrinking is the usual advice, and it's worth seeing what it buys.

Exporting a 4K video at 1080p cuts each minute to a fraction of its size. Yet even at 720p, one email holds well under a minute. So shrinking alone rarely gets a long video past email, Discord or WhatsApp's video limit, and you've still paid in sharpness.

When shrinking is fine:

• The video will only be watched on a phone. 1080p looks sharp on a phone screen, and it travels far more easily.
• It's a quick reaction clip or a joke. Nobody needs every pixel of a dog chasing its tail.
• You're trimming, not squeezing. Cutting a long video down to the part that matters keeps the quality of what's left. On an iPhone, Photos can trim a clip and Save Video as New Clip keeps the original too.

When to send it whole:

• Someone will edit it. An editor needs the original resolution and frame rate, or the final cut suffers.
• It's going on a big screen. Wedding films, recitals and event footage get watched on TVs.
• It's the only copy. If the video is leaving a phone that's about to be wiped, send the original.

Send a large video as a link, step by step

When SendTheStuff launches, sending a large video will take these steps:

1. Open it on the device that has the video, and pick the video from Photos, Gallery, Files or your Downloads.
2. Confirm your email address with a code, and the upload will start.
3. Copy the link, or send it by text, email or the share sheet.

Until SendTheStuff launches

Here's how to send a large video as a link today.

From an iPhone, to anyone: Apple Mail's Mail Drop sends videos up to 5 GB as an iCloud download link. Attach the video in Mail, and when Mail offers Mail Drop, accept it. The link works for 30 days. The iPhone video guide covers AirDrop and iCloud Link too.

From Android, or any device, with Google Drive:

1. Upload the video to Google Drive from the Drive app or drive.google.com.
2. Open its sharing settings. Under General access, choose Anyone with the link.
3. Copy the link and send it. Delete the video from Drive once it's been downloaded, to get your storage back.

The Android video guide has the Quick Share and Google Messages routes.

With WhatsApp, if you both use it: send the video as a Document, not from the gallery. That goes up to 2 GB, and the video arrives in its original quality.

What the person you send it to needs

A link from SendTheStuff will open in any browser, with nothing to install. The person will see the video's name, its size and the expiry date, then watch or download it.

With today's routes, it varies. A Drive link asks for a sign-in unless it's shared with "Anyone with the link". A WhatsApp document needs WhatsApp on both ends.

One thing a link never changes is the video's format. An iPhone set to High Efficiency records HEVC, which some Windows PCs and older Android phones can't play. If the person can't open it, a free player such as VLC usually can. For future videos, Settings > Camera > Formats > Most Compatible records H.264 instead.

Sending several videos, or a whole shoot

Large videos rarely travel alone. A wedding, a match or a holiday leaves a camera roll of clips, and sending them one by one means a pile of messages.

SendTheStuff will put up to 1,000 files behind one link, up to 5 GB in total. Until it launches, a shared Google Drive folder is the closest thing.

Name the files before you send them, such as "ceremony" and "speeches". It saves the person at the other end opening every clip to find the one they want.

When a large video won't send

The upload stops on a phone. Phones pause pages in the background to save battery. Keep the screen on and the page in front until it's done, and use Wi-Fi if you can.

The video plays without sound or won't open. The person's player may not support the format. Ask them to try VLC. For future iPhone videos, record in Most Compatible.

It arrived blurry. Something along the way compressed it, usually a chat app or MMS. Send it as a link or as a document instead of as a video in the chat.

Gmail swapped it for a Drive link the person can't open. The file is still private. Change its sharing to "Anyone with the link".

A Drive link says "Video is still processing. Try again later." Large videos take a while to get ready after they upload. Wait, then try again.